The Argosy — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

74 . My Cousin Caroline's Wedding. honour she was—and we were on the point of as hot a flirtation as ever, when the room door suddenly opened, and the butler put in his head. “ Captain Fitzhenry.” I started back with astonishment, and trod upon aunt’s pet cat. After spitting and snarling, it made at last a spring at the startled servant. For instead of the monkey I had pictured, in walked a splendid man of six or seven-and-twenty, handsome enough to have had his portrait propped up at the “ National,” or his bust in a group of far-famed sculpture ; with a frank, beaming eye, and a tongue that might have turned half the girls’ heads in Christendom. How on earth had Caroline beguiled him? I might have waited for the sun to form a conjunction with itself, or a brief to come to me, before alighting on a more agreeable fellow. A really well-informed, companionable man, keen and sensible. We be- came cordial friends at once, and I lost myself in a puzzled reverie. That he should have chosen Caroline for a wife did not surprise me ; for if men and women were shaken up in a bag, and drawn out of it in couples, more incongruous matches would not be met with than are met ° with now ; but—his docility to aunt and the new religion ! My aunt was in high goodhumour, and proposed that we four should have a quadrille, offering to try her hand at some bygone tune; so down she sat to the piano. But how were we to stand up? Captain Fitzhenry, of course, advanced to his bride-elect ; but it would never do for brother and sister to dance together. So the captain took Lina, and I crossed over to Caroline. He danced very well; as did Lina. They looked a handsome couple, and so well suited to each other that I caught myself wondering, per- haps regretting, that she was not his chosen one. I hoped I was mis- taken—indeed, I knew I was—but it did strike me that if ever bright blue eyes beamed love, Lina’s did when she glanced at his. Before we had finished the four-iegged quadnille—people say four handed cribbage and four-handed whist, so why not four-legged quadrille p—Dr. Cram, the rector, came in. The Dashinglys had not renounced old friends with their new religion. A fine specimen of a good old English parson was Dr. Cram; the very quintessence of moderation and humility ; held only five livings, and was not paid a farthing more than three thousand a year for the lot. For that was the abe of pluralities. A pleasant, hospitable man, with a rubicund face and a round-about form, quite a second Daniel Lambert; never trou- blitig his head about any earthly care, save what he should eat and drink ; interfering with nobody; letting his flock go whatever road they chose, and preaching about five sermons in the year—one at each place. People insinuated at the time that had he been a little less supine, Dashingly House might not have taken refuge,,in, Rome.)0He was to have the honour of officiating at Caroline’s wedding; so CORNICE OOO SS (C(O) mn —_)