Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/173

Rh himself up, bound hand and foot, to the De Courcys, to be dealt with in all matters as they might please. It was that feeling which had been so grievous to him,—and that other feeling, cognate to it, that if he should ultimately succeed in rebelling against the De Courcys, he would find himself a solitary man.

"Yes; I shall go," Fowler Pratt had said to Montgomerie Dobbs. "I always stick to a fellow if I can. Crosbie has behaved like a blackguard, and like a fool also; and he knows that I think so. But I don't see why I should drop him on that account. I shall go as he has asked me."

"So shall I," said Montgomerie Dobbs, who considered that he would be safe in doing whatever Fowler Pratt did, and who remarked to himself that after all Crosbie was marrying the daughter of an earl.

Then, after the marriage, came the breakfast, at which the countess presided with much noble magnificence. She had not gone to church, thinking, no doubt, that she would be better able to maintain her good humour at the feast, if she did not subject herself to the chance of lumbago in the church. At the foot of the table sat Mr. Gresham, her brother-in-law, who had undertaken to give the necessary toast and make the necessary speech. The Honourable John was there, saying all manner of ill-natured things about his sister and new brother-in-law, because he had been excluded from his proper position at the foot of the table. But Alexandrina had declared that she would not have the matter entrusted to her brother. The Honourable George would not come, because the countess had not asked his wife.

"Maria may be slow, and all that sort of thing," George had said; "but she is my wife. And she had got what they haven't. Love me, love my dog, you know." So he had stayed down at Courcy,—very properly as I think.

Alexandrina had wished to go away before breakfast, and Crosbie would not have cared how early an escape had been provided for him; but the countess had told her daughter that if she would not wait for the breakfast, there should be no breakfast at all, and in fact no wedding; nothing but a simple marriage. Had there been a grand party, that going away of the bride and bridegroom might be very well; but the countess felt that on such an occasion as this nothing but the presence of the body of the sacrifice could give any reality to the festivity. So Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina Crosbie