"Yes, I can answer for him that he will. And he will come to the wedding if I ask him."
"Then ask him, Harry."
"So," said Lord Jocelyn, "the dressmaker has relented, has she? Why, that is well. And I am to give my consent? My dear boy, I only want you to be happy. Besides, I am quite sure and certain that you will be happy."
"Everybody is, if he marries the woman he loves," said the young man sententiously.
"Yes—yes, if he goes on loving the woman he has married. However, Harry, you have my best wishes and consent, since you are good enough to ask for it. Wait a bit." He got up and began to search about in drawers and desks. "I must give your fiancée a present, Harry. See—here is something good. Will you give her, with my best love and good wishes, this? It was once my mother's."
Harry looked at the gaud, set with pearls and rubies in old-fashioned style.
"Is it not," he asked, "rather too splendid for a—poor people in our position?"
Lord Jocelyn laughed aloud.
"Nothing," he said, "can be too splendid for a beautiful woman. Give it her, Harry, and tell her I am glad she has consented to make you happy. Tell her I am more than glad, Harry. Say that I most heartily thank her. Yes, thank her. Tell her that. Say that I thank her from my heart."
As the day drew near the girls became possessed of a great fear. It seemed to all as if things were going to undergo some great and sudden change. They knew that the house was secured to them free of rent; but they were going to lose their queen, that presiding spirit who not only kept them together, but also kept them happy. In her presence there were no little tempers, and jealousies were forgotten. When she was with them they were all on their best behavior. Now it is an odd thing in girls, and I really think myself privileged, considering my own very small experience of the sex, in being the first to have discovered this important truth—that, whereas to boys good behavior is too often a gêne and a bore, girls prefer behaving well. They are happiest when they are good, nicely dressed, and sitting all in a row with company manners. But who, when Miss Kennedy went away, would lead them in the drawing-room? The change, however, was going to be greater than they knew or guessed; the drawing-room itself would become before many days a thing of the past, but the Palace would take its place.