Perhaps the matter most remarkable of the wedding was the hilarity of the Duke.  One who did not know him well might have said that he was a man with very few cares, and who now took special joy in the happiness of his children,—­who was thoroughly contented to see them marry after their own hearts.  And yet, as he stood there on the altar-steps giving his daughter to that new son and looking first at his girl, and then at his married son, he was reminding himself of all that he had suffered.

After the breakfast,—­which was by no means a grand repast and at which the cake did not look so like an ill-soldered silver castle as that other construction had done,—­the happy couple were sent away in a modest chariot to the railway station, and not above half-a-dozen slippers were thrown after them.  There were enough for luck,—–­or perhaps there might have been luck even without them, for the wife thoroughly respected her husband, as did the husband his wife.  Mrs Finn, when she was alone with Phineas, said a word or two about Tregear.  ’When she first told me of her engagement I did not think it possible that she would marry him.  But after he had been with me I felt sure that he would succeed.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Silverbridge to the Duke when they were out together in the park that afternoon, ’what do you think about him?’

‘I think he is a manly young man.’

’He certainly is that.  And then he knows things and understands them.  It was never a surprise to me that Mary should have been so fond of him.’

’I do not know that one ought to be surprised at anything.  Perhaps what surprised me most was that he should look so high.  There seemed so little to justify it.  But now I will accept that as courage which I before regarded as arrogance.’