CHAPTER V.
The action of the "Patent Oxy-Hydrogen Love-at-First-Sight Philtre" was rapid and powerful, and before
evening there was scarcely a disengaged person (over
thirteen years of age) in Ploverleigh. The Dowager
Lady Fitz-Saracen, a fierce old lady of sixty, had
betrothed herself to Alfred Creeper, of the "Three
Fiddlers," a very worthy man, who had been engaged in
the public trade all his life, and had never yet had a
mark on his license. Colonel Pemberton, of The
Grove, had fixed his affections on dear little Bessie
Lane, the pupil teacher, and his son Willie (who had
returned from Eton only the day before) had given out
his engagement to kind old Mrs. Partlet, the widow of
the late sexton. In point of fact there was only one
disengaged person in the village—the good and grave
old Bishop. He was in the position of the odd player
who can't find a seat in the "Family Coach." But,
on the whole, Stanley Gay was rather glad of this, as
he venerated the good old prelate, and in his opinion
there was no one in the village at that time who was
really good enough to be a Bishop's wife, except, indeed,
the dear little brown-haired, soft-eyed maiden to whom
Stanley himself was betrothed.
So far everything had worked admirably, and the unions effected through the agency of the philtre, if they were occasionally ill-assorted as regards the stations in life of the contracting parties, were all that
