Sylvester Davenport Clyde a cruel injustice to bring him to the front
again, beside such pictures of exalted humanity as we have just been
contemplating, I owe it, in amendment, for my trespass upon the
reader's patience, to proceed with the interrupted thread of my story,
and can therefore only trust to the generosity of his disposition not
to dwell at any length upon the compromising nature of the contrast,
but to remember Mr. Clyde, in his more interesting character of
bridegroom, at a very showy and stylish wedding ceremony.
When the great event had come and gone, no one could tell exactly
whether half his or her sanguine expectations had been fulfilled or
not. I had an uneasy suspicion, at the time, that the soundness of the
family's mental organization had become temporarily suspended, from
Mrs. Merivale down--they seemed to have gone stark mad.
It was six weeks after the ceremony of pelting a glittering carriage
with white slippers and rice, as it rolled away from their
festive-looking mansion, that Mrs. Merivale dropped down into an
easy-chair one afternoon with the greatest languor and physical
depression, and declaring that "those fashionable weddings were enough
to knock a body up for a month," quietly fell asleep among her
comfortable cushions.
CHAPTER XVII.
There is only a little more labor for my long-used wheel, and the
threads of my uneven life will have run on to the crisis. I cannot
console myself with the thought that it has been watched through its
tedious progress, by loving or partial glances: the bobbin was faulty
and stiff at times, and the worker grew pensive and weary.
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