Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/205

Rh beginning of her married life: "I began to feel, what I have always felt since, that he was a glorious, stately ship in full sail, commanding all attention and admiration, and sometimes, if the wind drops, she still sails gallantly, and no one sees the humble little steam-tug hidden on the other side, with her strong heart and faithful arms working forth, and glorying in her proud and stately ship."

Very soon after her marriage Isabel was reconciled to her mother. It came about in this wise. Mrs. Arundell thought she had gone away on a visit to some friends in the country, and told her friends so; but a week or two after the marriage one of Isabel's aunts, Monica Lady Gerard, heard of her going into a lodging in St. James's, and immediately rushed off to tell Mrs. Arundell that Isabel could not be staying in the country, as was supposed, and she feared she had eloped or something of the kind. Mrs. Arundell, in an agony of fear, telegraphed to her husband, who was then staying with some friends, and he wired back to her, "She is married to Dick Burton, and thank God for it." He also wrote, enclosing a letter Burton had written to him on the day of the marriage, announcing the fact, and he asked his wife to send one of Isabel's brothers (who knew the Burtons' address) to them and be reconciled. Mrs. Arundell was so much relieved that a worse thing had not befallen Isabel that she sent for the truant pair at once. She was not a woman to do things by halves; and recognizing that the inevitable had happened, and that for weal or woe the deed was done, she received both Isabel and her husband with the utmost kindness,