‘It will be a pollution,’ said Julia, sternly, to her younger sisters.

‘You will be a married woman almost before you have seen him,’ said Georgiana, the second, ’and so it won’t matter so much to you.  We must get over it as we can.’

Julia had been thought by her sisters not to bear the Smirkie triumph with sufficient humility; and they, therefore, were sometimes a little harsh to her.  ‘I don’t think you understand it at all,’ said Julia.  ’You have no conception what should be the feelings of a married woman, especially when she is going to become the wife of one of God’s ministers.’

But in spite of all this, Aunt Polly wrote to her nephew as follows:—­

’Dear John,—­Our dearest Julia is to be married on Tuesday next.  You know how anxious we all have been to maintain affectionate family relations with you, and we therefore do not like the idea of our sweet child passing from her present sphere to other duties without your presence.  Will you come over on Monday evening, and stay till after the breakfast?  It is astonishing how many of our friends from the two counties have expressed their wish to grace the ceremony by their company.  I doubt whether there is a clergyman in the diocese of Ely more respected and thought of by all the upper classes than Augustus Smirkie.

’I do not ask Mrs. Caldigate, because, under present circumstances, she would not perhaps wish to go into company, and because Augustus has never yet had an opportunity of making her acquaintance.  I will only say that it is the anxious wish of us all here that you and she together may soon see the end of these terrible troubles.—­Believe me to be, your affectionate aunt,

    ‘Maryanne Babington.’

The writing of this letter had not been effected without much difficulty.  The Squire himself was not good at the writing of letters, and, though he did insist on seeing this epistle, so that he might be satisfied that Caldigate had been asked in good faith, he did not know how to propose alterations.  ‘That’s all my eye,’ he said, referring to his son-in-law that was to be.  ’He’s as good as another, but I don’t know that he’s any better.’

‘That, my dear,’ said Aunt Polly, ’is because you do not interest yourself about such matters.  If you had heard what the Archdeacon said of him the other day, you would think differently.’

‘He’s another parson,’ said the Squire.  ’Of course they butter each other up.’  Then he went on to the other paragraph.  ’I wouldn’t have said anything about his wife.’

‘That would not have been civil,’ said Aunt Polly; ’and as you insist on my asking him, I do not wish to be rude.’  And so the letter was sent as it was written.

It reached Caldigate on the day which Hester was passing with her mother at Chesterton,—­on the Tuesday.  She had left Folking on the Monday, intending to return on the Wednesday.  Caldigate was therefore alone with his father.  ‘They might as well have left that undone,’ said he, throwing the letter over the table.