"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you and

yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.

The rapture was, however, only temporary. Fred's father and senior

partners counselled him to take Maria, even with the twenty thousand

settled, half down, and half at the death of Mr. Osborne, with the

chances of the further division of the property. So he "knuckled

down," again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable

overtures to Osborne. It was his father, he said, who would not hear

of the match, and had made the difficulties; he was most anxious to

keep the engagement. The excuse was sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne.

Hulker and Bullock were a high family of the City aristocracy, and

connected with the "nobs" at the West End. It was something for the old

man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker, Bullock,

and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary Mango, sir, daughter of

the Right Hon. The Earl of Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw

his house peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and

consented that the marriage should take place.

It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the breakfast,

their habitations being near St. George's, Hanover Square, where the

business took place. The "nobs of the West End" were invited, and many

of them signed the book. Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there,

with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as bridesmaids;

Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest son of the house of

Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousin of the bridegroom, and

the Honourable Mrs. Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord

Levant's son, and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount

Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs. McMull (formerly Miss

Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who have all married into Lombard

Street and done a great deal to ennoble Cornhill.

The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a small villa at

Roehampton, among the banking colony there. Fred was considered to

have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose

grandfather had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through

the husbands with some of the best blood in England. And Maria was

bound, by superior pride and great care in the composition of her

visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and felt it her

duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.

That she should utterly break with the old man, who had still so many

scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to suppose. Fred

Bullock would never allow her to do that. But she was still young and

incapable of hiding her feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister

to her third-rate parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they

came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and indiscreetly begging her

father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did more harm than all

Frederick's diplomacy could repair, and perilled her chance of her

inheritance like a giddy heedless creature as she was.




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