CHAPTER XXII

The Wedding

No sooner did the new two lovers, Mounser Green and Arabella Trefoil, understand each other, than they set their wits to work to make the best of their natural advantages.  The latter communicated the fact in a very dry manner to her father and mother.  Nothing was to be got from them, and it was only just necessary that they should know what she intended to do with herself.  “My dear mamma.  I am to be married some time early in May to Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office.  I don’t think you know him, but I daresay you have heard of him.  He goes to Patagonia immediately after the wedding, and I shall go with him.  Your affectionate daughter, Arabella Trefoil.”  That was all she said, and the letter to her father was word for word the same.  But how to make use of those friends who were more happily circumstanced was matter for frequent counsel between her and Mr. Green.  In these days I do not think that she concealed very much from him.  To tell him all the little details of her adventures with Lord Rufford would have been neither useful nor pleasant; but, as to the chief facts, reticence would have been foolish.  To the statement that Lord Rufford had absolutely proposed to her she clung fast, and really did believe it herself.  That she had been engaged to John Morton she did not deny; but she threw the blame of that matter on her mother, and explained to him that she had broken off the engagement down at Bragton, because she could not bring herself to regard the man with sufficient personal favour.  Mounser was satisfied, but was very strong in urging her to seek, yet once again, the favour of her magnificent uncle and her magnificent aunt.

“What good can they do us?” said Arabella, who was almost afraid to make the appeal.

“It would be everything for you to be married from Mistletoe,” he said.  “People would know then that you were not blamed about Lord Rufford.  And it might serve me very much in my profession.  These things do help very much.  It would cost us nothing, and the proper kind of notice would then get into the newspapers.  If you will write direct to the Duchess I will get at the Duke through Lord Drummond.  They know where we are going, and that we are not likely to want anything else for a long time.”

“I don’t think the Duchess would have mamma if it were ever so.”

“Then we must drop your mother for the time;—­that’s all.  When my aunt hears that you are to be married from the Duke’s, she will be quite willing that you should remain with her till you go down to Mistletoe.”