made so many of us wretched.  And then there was a feeling that, as she was giving herself away in marriage altogether in opposition to her mother’s counsels, on that very account she owed to her more attached and increased observance.  Therefore, she had arranged with her husband that when she returned from the banquet to prepare herself for her journey, a longer absence than usual should be allowed to her;—­so that she might be taken back to Chesterton, and might thus see her mother the last after saying farewell to all the others.  Then the carriage should return to The Nurseries and he would be ready to step in, and she need not show herself again, worn out as she would be with the tears and sobbings which she anticipated.

It all went as it was arranged, but it would have been much better to arrange it otherwise.  The journey to the Grange and back, together with the time spent in the interview, took an hour,—­and the time went very slowly with the marriage guests.  There always comes a period beyond which it is impossible to be festive.  When the bride left the room, the bridesmaids and other ladies went with her.  Then the gentlemen who remained hardly knew what to do with each other.  Old Mr. Bolton was not jovial on the occasion, and the four brothers hardly knew how to find subjects for conversation on such an occasion.  The bridegroom felt the hour to be very long, although he consented to play billiards with the boys; and John Jones, although he did at last escape and find his way up among the girls, thought that his friend had married himself into a very sombre family.  But all this was pleasant pastime indeed compared with that which poor Hester endured in her mother’s bedroom.  ’So it has been done,’ said Mrs. Bolton, sitting in a comfortless little chair, which she was accustomed to use when secluded, with her Bible, from all the household.  She spoke in a voice that might have been fit had a son of hers been just executed on the gallows.

‘Oh, mamma, do not speak of it like that!’

‘My darling, my own one; would you have me pretend what I do not feel?’ ‘Why, yes.  Even that would be better than treatment such as this.’  That would have been Hester’s reply could she have spoken her mind; but she could not speak it, and therefore she stood silent.  ’I will not pretend.  You and your father have done this thing against my wishes and against my advice.’

‘It is I that have done it, mamma.’

’You would not have persevered had he been firm,—­as firm as I have been.  But he has vacillated, turning hither and thither, serving God and Mammon.  And he has allowed himself to be ruled by his own son.  I will never, never speak to Robert Bolton again.’

‘Oh mamma, do not say that.’

’I do say it.  I swear it.  You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled.  If there be pitch on earth he is pitch.  If your eye offend you, pluck it out.  He is my step-son, I know; but I will pluck him out like an eye that has offended.  It is he that has robbed me of my child.’