“Miss Middleton’s admirers are always on view.” said he.

“Are they to be seen?” said Lady Busshe.

Clara made her face a question, with a laudable smoothness.

“The wedding-presents,” Lady Culmer explained.

“No.”

“Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating and triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the satisfaction of the bride.”

“But there’s a worse danger to encounter in the ‘on view’, my lady,” said De Craye; “and that’s the magnetic attraction a display of wedding-presents is sure to have for the ineffable burglar, who must have a nuptial soul in him, for wherever there’s that collection on view, he’s never a league off.  And ’tis said he knows a lady’s dressing-case presented to her on the occasion fifteen years after the event.”

“As many as fifteen?” said Mrs. Mountstuart.

“By computation of the police.  And if the presents are on view, dogs are of no use, nor bolts, nor bars:—­he’s worse than Cupid.  The only protection to be found, singular as it may be thought, is in a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British isles.”

“Rum?” cried Lady Busshe.

“The liquor of the Royal Navy, my lady.  And with your permission, I’ll relate the tale in proof of it.  I had a friend engaged to a young lady, niece of an old sea-captain of the old school, the Benbow school, the wooden leg and pigtail school; a perfectly salt old gentleman with a pickled tongue, and a dash of brine in every deed he committed.  He looked rolled over to you by the last wave on the shore, sparkling:  he was Neptune’s own for humour.  And when his present to the bride was opened, sure enough there lay a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles, born before himself, and his father to boot.  ’Tis a fabulous spirit I beg you to believe in, my lady, the sole merit of the story being its portentous veracity.  The bottles were tied to make them appear twins, as they both had the same claim to seniority.  And there was a label on them, telling their great age, to maintain their identity.  They were in truth a pair of patriarchal bottles rivalling many of the biggest houses in the kingdom for antiquity.  They would have made the donkey that stood between the two bundles of hay look at them with obliquity:  supposing him to have, for an animal, a rum taste, and a turn for hilarity.  Wonderful old bottles!  So, on the label, just over the date, was written large:  Uncle Benjamin’s wedding present to his niece Bessy.  Poor Bessy shed tears of disappointment and indignation enough to float the old gentleman on his native element, ship and all.  She vowed it was done curmudgeonly to vex her, because her uncle hated wedding-presents and had grunted at the exhibition of cups and saucers, and this and that beautiful service, and epergnes and inkstands, mirrors, knives and forks, dressing-cases,