Of course every one was delighted to see him at Halliburton. Tom and Desmond were as happy as the day was long, they only wished that Archy Gordon, who had gone back to his friends in Scotland, could have been with them. Gerald Desmond behaved with wonderful discretion and propriety.
“Really, Jack, if Lieutenant Adair is as quiet and steady as his nephew appears to be, we need no longer fear, should he come here, that he will play the tricks we once supposed he would,” observed Lucy.
“I always told you that Terence is as well conducted a young Irishman as one can wish to meet with,” answered Jack. “I will ask him to come over and pay us his long-promised visit before I go to Ballymacree, and he then can attend Murray’s wedding with me.”
Jack wrote, and Terence accepted the invitation and came. Lucy confessed that she thought Lieutenant Adair was the most pleasing, right-minded gentleman she had ever met.
“Of course he is,” said Jack. “But then, remember that he is a half-pay navy lieutenant, and that his paternal estate is in the Encumbered Estate Court.”
The day before Murray’s wedding, Jack and Terence went up to London, and at once called at his lodgings. They found a gentlemanly-looking man, with the cut of a lawyer, seated with him. He significantly introduced his friend as Mr Stapleton, “who is to undergo the same fate for which I am destined tomorrow.”
After some lively conversation, Mr Stapleton took his departure.
“Who is he?” asked Jack. “He seems a very happy fellow.”
“He is the destined husband of Fanny Bradshaw,” answered Alick. “Matters, for certain reasons, were not settled till after you left town, and therefore Mr Bradshaw did not inform you of the cause of his coming to England. It has been a long engagement; and as Stapleton could not go out to the West Indies, Fanny wisely consented to come to England, and she and Stella arranged, if possible, to marry the same day.”
Jack said nothing, he was suddenly awakened from his dream, and he very soon began to doubt whether he had been as desperately in love with Fanny as he had supposed after all. At all events he could earnestly wish her and her husband every happiness.