Burton went with her to the train, and saw her into the car, and bought her Harper's Monthly, and bade her good-by, and then, in passing out, met and lifted his hat to the Misses Grey, Lucy and Geraldine, who had been visiting in Boston, and were returning to Allington.
This encounter drove his sister from his mind, and made him think of his aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress of his home.
It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing. Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.
"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am not marrying them, and shall take good care to keep them in their places, which places are not in Boston."
And so the two were married, Burton Jerrold and Geraldine Grey, and there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were bidden. Could Lucy have had her way, the whole town would have been invited; but Geraldine overruled her, and made herself life-long enemies of the people who had known her from childhood. Peter Jerrold staid at home, just as Burton hoped he would, but Hannah was present, in a new gray silk, with some old lace, and a bit of scarlet ribbon at her throat, and her hair arranged somewhat after the fashion of the times. This was the suggestion of Lucy Grey, who had more influence over Hannah Jerrold than any one else in the world, and when she advised the new silk, and the old lace, and the scarlet ribbon, Hannah assented readily, and looked so youthful and pretty, in spite of her thirty years, that the Rev. Mr. Sanford, who was a bachelor, and had preached in Allington for several years, paid her marked attention, helping her to ices, and walking with her for half an hour on the long terrace in a corner of the park.