Miss T. And yet these charnel-house rags may serve to remind the thoughtless banquetters that they are but mortal.
Min. I don’t think it will be necessary to do that, dear. Papa’s sherry will make that quite clear to them.
Miss T. Then I will hie me home, and array me in garments of less sombre hue.
Min. I think it would be better, dear. Those are the very things for a funeral, but this is a wedding.
Miss T. I see very little difference between them. But it shall be as you wish, though I have worn nothing but black since my miserable marriage. There is breakfast, I suppose?
Min. Yes, at dear Cheviot’s house.
Miss T. That is well. I shall return in time for it. Thank heaven I can still eat! (Takes a tart from table, and exit, followed by Minnie.)
Enter Cheviot Hill. He is dressed as for a wedding.
Ch. Here I am at last—quite flurried and hot after the usual row with the cabman, just when I wanted to be particularly calm and self-contained. I got the best of it though. Dear me, this is a great day for me—a great day. Where’s Minnie, I wonder? Arraying herself for the sacrifice, no doubt. Pouf! This is a very nervous occasion. I wonder if I’m taking a prudent step. Marriage is a very risky thing; it’s like Chancery, once in it you can’t get out of it, and the costs are enormous. There you are—fixed. Fifty years hence, if we’re both alive, there we shall both be—fixed. That’s the devil of it. It’s an unreasonably long time to be responsible for another person’s expenses. I don’t see the use of making it for as long as that. It seems greedy to take up half a century of another person’s attention. Besides—one never knows—one might come across somebody else one liked better—that uncommonly nice girl I met in Scotland, for instance. No, no, I shall be true to my Minnie—quite true. I am quite determined that nothing shall shake my constancy to Minnie.
Enter Parker.