Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart with

all maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as the

carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping,

trembling, young bride. Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,

trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed. The Irish servant-lass

rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you." Amelia could

hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour.

How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when they

were together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily be

imagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn.

When don't ladies weep? At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other

business of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and

daughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is

as tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seen

women who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. How much

more do they feel when they love! Good mothers are married over again

at their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who does

not know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until

she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a mother

is. Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering and

laughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight. Old Mr. Sedley

did. HE had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. He

had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very

warmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, with

his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sitting

with the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the

little apartment in their possession.

George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at Mr.

Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes. He took off his

hat, however, with much condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news

about his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his horses

had been down to Brighton, and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty,

and the war; until the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a

bottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the

valet. He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed with

a mixture of wonder and contempt. "To the health of your master and

mistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, "and here's something to drink

your health when you get home, Trotter."

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottage

and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it

farewell. What a gulf lay between her and that past life. She could

look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,

almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love,

having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection

if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her

due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one

desire. The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away,

touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her

with tender remorse. Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the

winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass

the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as

if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended:

as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant

there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's

arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and

perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her

new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad

friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the

other distant shore.




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