'Haven't you heard of that? Why, he's had two already.'
'Two wives already! Oh now, Master Augustus, what an old fool I am ever to believe a word that comes out of your mouth.' Then having uttered her blessing, and having had her hand cordially grasped by this new scion of the Staveley family, the old woman left the young men to themselves, and went to her bed.
'Now that it is done———,' said Felix.
'You wish it were undone.'
'No, by heaven! I think I may venture to say that it will never come to me to wish that. But now that it is done, I am astonished at my own impudence almost as much as at my success. Why should your father have welcomed me to his house as his son-in-law, seeing how poor are my prospects?'
'Just for that reason; and because he is so different from other men. I have no doubt that he is proud of Madeline for having liked a man with an ugly face and no money.'
'If I had been beautiful like you, I shouldn't have had a chance with him.'
'Not if you'd been weighted with money also. Now, as for myself, I confess I'm not nearly so magnanimous as my father, and, for Mad's sake, I do hope you will get rid of your vagaries. An income, I know, is a very commonplace sort of thing; but when a man has a family there are comforts attached to it.'
'I am at any rate willing to work,' said Graham somewhat moodily.
'Yes, if you may work exactly in your own way! But men in the world can't do that. A man, as I take it, must through life allow himself to be governed by the united wisdom of others around him. He cannot take upon himself to judge as to every step by his own lights. If he does, he will be dead before he has made up his mind as to the preliminaries.' And in this way Augustus Staveley from the depth of his life's experience spoke words of worldly wisdom to his future brother-in-law.
On the next morning before he started again for Alston and his now odious work, Graham succeeded in getting Madeline to himself for five minutes. 'I saw both your father and mother last night,' said he, 'and I shall never forget their goodness to me.'
'Yes, they are good.'
'It seems like a dream to me that they should have accepted me as their son-in-law.'
'But it is no dream to me, Felix;—or if so, I do not mean to wake any more. I used to think that I should never care very much for anybody out of my own family;—but now———' And she then pressed her little hand upon his arm.
'And Felix,' she said, as he prepared to leave her, 'you are not to go away from Noningsby when the trial is over. I wanted mamma to tell you, but she said I'd better do it.'
