Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/254

242. Lady Laura waited to see no more, but with a heart filled with terror, hope, joy, and uneasiness, she threw herself into the arms of one of her sisters.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lord Henry Stapleton, about a week after the wedding of his sister, seizing John suddenly by the arm, while the latter was taking his morning walk to the residence of the dowager Lady Chatterton, "Moseley, you dissipated youth, in town yet: you told me you should stay but a day, and here I find you at the end of a fortnight."

John blushed a little at the consciousness of his reason for sending a written, instead of carrying a verbal report, of the result of his journey, but replied,—

"Yes, my friend Chatterton unexpectedly arrived, and so—and so"—

"And so you did not go, I presume you mean," cried Lord Henry, with a laugh.

"Yes," said John, "and so I stayed—but where is Denhigh?"

"Where?—why with his wife, where every well-behaved man should be, especially for the first month," rejoined the sailor, gayly.

"Wife!" echoed John, as soon as he felt able to give utterance to his words, "wife! is he married?"

"Married!" cried Lord Henry, imitating his manner, "are you yet to learn that? why did you ask for him?"

"Ask for him!" said Moseley, yet lost in astonishment; "but when—how—where did he marry—my lord?"

Lord Henry looked at him for a moment with a surprise little short of his own, as he answered more gravely:—

"When? last Tuesday; how? by special license, and the Bishop of ; where? at Eltringham: yes, my dear follow," continued he, with his former gayety, "George is my brother now—and a fine fellow he is."

"I really wish your lordship much joy," said John, struggling to command his feelings.

"Thank you—thank you," replied the sailor; "a jolly time we had of it, Moseley. I wish, with all my heart, you had been there; no bolting or running away as soon