Brooke's propitiation
was more clogging to his tongue than Mr. Cadwallader's caustic hint.
But Celia was glad to have room for speech after her uncle's suggestion
of the marriage ceremony, and she said, though with as little eagerness
of manner as if the question had turned on an invitation to dinner,
"Do you mean that Dodo is going to be married directly, uncle?"
"In three weeks, you know," said Mr. Brooke, helplessly. "I can do
nothing to hinder it, Cadwallader," he added, turning for a little
countenance toward the Rector, who said--
"--I--should not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor,
that is her affair. Nobody would have said anything if she had
married the young fellow because he was rich. Plenty of beneficed
clergy are poorer than they will be. Here is Elinor," continued the
provoking husband; "she vexed her friends by me: I had hardly
a thousand a-year--I was a lout--nobody could see anything in me--
my shoes were not the right cut--all the men wondered how a woman
could like me. Upon my word, I must take Ladislaw's part until I
hear more harm of him."
"Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife.
"Everything is all one--that is the beginning and end with you.
As if you had not been a Cadwallader! Does any one suppose that I
would have taken such a monster as you by any other name?"
"And a clergyman too," observed Lady Chettam with approbation.
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