, left him free, galloped to Mabel, to talk of our
good fortune. The dragon had done him injustice; that was not his weak
point. So they were married! and they were very, very happy. But, one
month after, the dragon died, and that was their first grief; but they
bore it together.
And Vane was not like the other Shropshire squires. His idea of pleasure
was something his wife could share. He still rode, walked, and sat with
her, and read to her, and composed songs for her, and about her, which
she played and sang prettily enough, in her quiet, lady-like way, and in
a voice of honey dropping from the comb. Then she kept a keen eye upon
him; and, when she discovered what dishes he liked, she superintended
those herself; and, observing that he never failed to eat of a certain
lemon-pudding the dragon had originated, she always made this pudding
herself, and she never told her husband she made it.
The first seven months of their marriage was more like blue sky than
brown earth; and if any one had told Mabel that her husband was a mortal,
and not an angel, sent to her that her days and nights might be unmixed,
uninterrupted heaven, she could hardly have realized the information.
When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was
Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the
proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140