At length May sent forth one of her fairest, most lovely, and odorous mornings for the occasion. There was an unusual bustle in every house and cottage in Woodburn. All was expectation in every dwelling to see the carriages driving up from the Grange, and there they came! But why need we particularise the persons and details of the scene? There, however, were three charming bridesmaids, Miss Woodburn, Miss Degge, and Miss Drury, in their white dresses and white veils, in the first carriage, followed by Sir Simon and Lady Degge, in their most splendid equipage, then Mr. and Mrs. Drury, accompanied by George Woodburn, and lastly, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, with the lovely, blushing Letty, with somewhat flushed cheeks, and eyes in which joy and tears stood together. Every creature was out as they passed through the village, and bows and curtseys, and women with apron corners to their eyes, and yet with the most beaming delight on their faces. At the church appeared already, Harry Thorsby, in superb costume, and his best man, Sir Henry Clavering, his mother, and two or three other friends. The ceremony was performed by the worthy old Thomas Clavering, assisted by Mr. Markham. All went off well. You, dear readers, may see the carriages dashing away again down to the Grange, and the streaming eyes, noddings, and waving hands of the villagers, and dancings and skippings of the children; you may imagine the déjeuner, and all the speeches, and—away the happy pair are gone to the Highlands of Scotland, where, no doubt, they will enjoy themselves amid the rocks, and hills, and lakes, and heather.
Meantime a certain blank and another degree of shade, have fallen on Woodburn Grange. When Letty, that sunbeam which was ever darting here and there, yet always making bright the house, returns, it will be to Castleborough. Not far off, to be sure, but still not exactly at Woodburn. Meantime, Ann and George, too, have their friend, Miss Drury, to enliven them by her genial and ever lively society. There are frequent passings between the Grange and Bilts’ Farm, where Mr. Trant Drury is always busy, though there really, just now, seems little to do, but for the dews to fall, and the crops to grow in the sunshine.
A month after the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Thorsby returned, full of happiness and health, to commence their new life in Castleborough—to receive Letty’s new circle of friends. That over, things resumed something of their old routine. Though Letty was no longer a resident at Woodburn Grange, but of Castleborough, greatly admired by a wide circle of new friends, yet she was frequently taking that way in her drives, and bringing in floods of sunshine and life with her; and she and Thorsby generally spent their Sundays there. Visits to the town were more attractive to the Woodburns, and more frequent. George always dined at his sister’s on market-day, and Mrs. Woodburn and Ann found a considerable number of shoppings and bargainings to make in town. Every one saw, and every one approved, the growing regard of George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury. No formal engagement was yet made, but both at the Grange and at Bilts’ Farm it was looked on as a settled affair, and that with mutual pride and satisfaction. Then there was a little loving intercourse going on at Fair Manor. Dr. Frank Leroy seemed to have found perfect favour with Miss Heritage, and with her parents. Every one thought him a fortunate fellow with such a lovely and amiable wife, and such a fortune in view: and every one thought that he deserved both, for he was extremely admired for the modesty which clothed so gracefully great knowledge and talent, and esteemed for his good and generous nature. Dr. Leroy was a member of the Society of Friends, though the orthodox did not class him as a “consistent member;” for he dressed and spoke as any other gentleman, having seen a great deal of the world at home and abroad, and learned that religion does not consist of caps and coats, but of great and ennobling principles.
Taking a sober view of the facts just stated, a not very sanguine calculation would conclude that in much less than two years there would be a succession of weddings in this quarter; that Frank Leroy and Millicent Heritage, George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury, and, perhaps, Sir Henry Clavering and Ann Woodburn, would have each and all passed into the holy state of matrimony, and that all the romance of that transitive epoch, that young elective life of love merging into sober domestic union, would be passed and gone. Let us see.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Humble-bee.
CHAPTER V.
MILLICENT HERITAGE AT THE YEARLY MEETING.
Two years have passed, and not one of these marriages has taken place. Causes have been at work which no one without the eye of a seer could well have detected, and yet they all lay in the nature of things. To trace out their operation into events will require some considerable detail. Let us begin at Fair Manor. There we saw everything tending apparently to a happy issue. The strongest affection existed betwixt Dr. Leroy and the fair Millicent. Dr. Leroy was every day extending his practice, and through it his reputation and usefulness. The brief hours that he could steal from his duties he spent at Fair Manor, and the happy lovers might be seen taking their rides together in the neighbouring country. They often alighted at Woodburn Grange and at Bilts’ Farm, and brought an atmosphere of gladness with them. Many pleasant evenings were spent by this little circle of friends at Fair Manor. The marriage of the doctor and Millicent was regarded as a near event. In the very month, however, of May of the year following Letty Woodburn’s marriage, the Heritages went up to the Friends’ yearly meeting. Mr. and Mrs. Heritage had frequently gone on these occasions, for Mr. Heritage had his banking connections in the capital, at whose houses he saw the most influential Friends in the kingdom, and Mrs. Heritage had often what was called in the Friends’ language, a concern upon her in relation to that annual national assembling. Her appearances, as they are termed, in the ministry, both in inspirational speaking and in supplication, that is, in preaching and prayer, were often very powerful and extraordinary. In them, she often rose into the loftiest and most solemn strains of eloquence. Sometimes these depicted the general, spiritual, and moral condition of the Society; sometimes they were directed to the states of particular individuals, and opened up in such force and startling discernment the minor trials, tendencies, temptations and perils of some person or persons un-named, as caused a silence like death to fall on the meeting,—a hush, in which the spirit of the Allseeing seemed to hover awfully and palpably over it; and in one instance, suicide itself was said to have been driven in horror from the soul which contemplated it. Sometimes the very walls of the meeting-house have seemed to shake under the rush and thunder of the power thus mysteriously let loose over the assembly by the words of a woman, and the whole of the assembled Quakerism then left the place in a still and reflective mood, giving only a fervid shake of the hand to each other and saying, but not till they had reached their particular abodes,—“that was a very precious opportunity.”
Around Mr. and Mrs. Heritage the most orthodox persons moved, and the most orthodox spirit reigned during these great annual visits, and they returned home much refreshed and invigorated for the daily trials of life. Sylvanus Crook would say of them, on such occasions, that the dews of Hermon and of Carmel seemed to have fallen on them, and that they had evidently been in the Lord’s banqueting-house, where His banner over them was love.