CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST OF MAY.

Mr. Chiffield proposed, was accepted, and was married in a Broadway church about the middle of April.  The affair was simplicity itself—­bridesmaids, groomsmen, costly wedding costume, and the subsequent conventional reception at the bride’s residence being dispensed with.  The ceremony was witnessed only by the officiating minister, the sexton, the happy father, and about two hundred of the floating population of Broadway, including a number of pickpockets, one of whom sounded the recesses of the coat tails appertaining unto Mr. Whedell and his son-in-law, as they were coming out of church, and found nothing in them.

The Siamese twins of the soul passed from the church amid the sneers, criticisms, and suppressed laughter of the spectators—­who united in pronouncing the ceremony a shabby affair, not worth looking at—­and, entering a carriage with Mr. Whedell, were driven to the New Jersey Railroad Depot furiously, as if they had been guilty of some crime against society.  At the depot, Mr. Whedell kissed his daughter in public, and not without a touch of the melodrama, for which he had cherished a fondness in his earlier days, and wrung the hand of his son-in-law.  The train bore the couple away toward the city of Washington, where a portion of that indefinite season known as the honeymoon was to be passed, amid every discomfort that money could purchase.  Why they should have gone to Washington in pursuit of bad hotels, and other miseries, when they could have procured them in so many other parts of the country for a quarter of the money, was something which Mr. Chiffield was never able to explain to his own satisfaction.

He afterward bitterly regretted that he had not made the nuptial trip to Newburg, or some place near the city, where the expenses would have been more moderate.  But we anticipate.

Mr. and Mrs. Chiffield had been absent ten days.  They were expected home on the 28th day of April; but a letter from Clementina informed her father that she had taken a bad cold, was confined to her room, and could not return before the 1st of May.  The brief note was written in a crabbed hand, and exhibited spots, which, if not lemon juice, were tears.  She made no allusion to her husband, but wound up by saying, “Oh, pa!  I am an unhappy girl!”

This intelligence was a thorn in the bed of Mr. Whedell’s comfort.  Had he not arranged to settle with his creditors on the 1st of May?  Was not the owner of the house occupied and used by him to resume possession on that eventful day?  And was not everything—­even his daily food—­dependent on the return of his children, as he fondly called them, with their pockets full of money?  What if this infernal cold should keep them in Washington until after the 1st of May?  As Mr. Whedell thought of himself, turned adrift, and a wanderer, he invariably tore out a few of the gray hairs which could be poorly spared from his venerable skull.