Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 | Page 7

No.'
'It has never by chance occurred to you that this bewitching niece of mine is'----
'Is what?'
'Your betrothed lady, for example, Frances Seymour?'
Major Elliott's cheeks and lips turned several shades paler; but the candles were not lighted, and his friends did not remark the change.
'Frances Seymour!' he echoed.
'That is the precise state of the case, I assure you;' and then Mr Gaskoin proceeded to explain how the deception came to be practised. 'I gave into it,' he said, 'though I do not like jests of that sort, because I thought, as my wife did, that you were much more likely to take a fancy to each other, if you did not know who she was, than if you met under all the embarrassment of such an awkward relation.'
During this little discourse, Major Elliott had time to recover from the shock; and being a man of resolute calmness and great self-possession--which qualities, by the way, formed a considerable element in his attractions--the remainder of the evening was passed without any circumstance calculated to awaken the suspicions of his host and hostess, further than that a certain gravity of tone and manner, when they spoke of Frances, led them to apprehend that he was not altogether pleased with the jest that had been practised.
'We ought to have told him the moment we saw that he was pleased with her; but, foolish child, she would not let us,' said Mr Gaskoin to his wife.
'She must make her peace with him to-morrow,' returned the lady; but, alas! when they came down to breakfast on the following morning, Major Elliott was gone, having left a few lines to excuse his sudden departure, which, he said, he had only anticipated by a few hours, as, in any case, he must have left them that afternoon.
By the same morning's post there arrived a letter from Vincent Dunbar, addressed to Miss Seymour. Its contents were as follow:--
'MY DEAREST, DEAREST FRANCES--I should have written to you ten days ago to tell you the joyful news--you little guess what--but that I had applied for an extension of leave on urgent private affairs, and expected every hour to get it. But they have refused me, be hanged to them! So I write to you, my darling, to tell you that it's all right--I mean between you and me. I'm not a very good hand at an explanation on paper, my education in the art of composition having been somewhat neglected; but you must know that old Elliott, whom your dad wanted you to marry, is our senior major. Well, when I came down here to meet Poole, as I had promised--his governor keeps hounds, you know; a capital pack, too--I was as dull as ditch-water; I was, I assure you; and whenever there was nothing going on, I used to take out the verses you wrote, and the music you copied for me, to look at; and one day, who should come in but Elliott, who was staying with his governor on the West Cliff, where the old gentleman has taken a house. Well, you know, I told you what a madcap fellow Poole is; and what should he do, but tell Elliott that I was going stark mad for a girl that couldn't have me because her dad had engaged her to somebody else; and then he shewed him the music that was lying on the table with your name on it. So you may guess how Elliott stared, and all the questions he asked me about you, and about our acquaintance and our love-making, and all the rest of it. And, of course, I told him the truth, and shewed him the dear lock of hair you gave me; and the little notes you wrote me the week I ran up to London; for Elliott's an honourable fellow, and I knew it was all right. And it is all right, my darling; for he says he wouldn't stand in the way of our happiness for the world, or marry a woman whose affections were not all his own. And he'll speak to your aunt for us, and get it all settled as soon as she comes back,' &c. &c.
The paper dropped from poor Frances Seymour's hands. She comprehended enough of Major Elliott's character to see that all was over. But for the unfortunate jest they had practised on him, an explanation would necessarily have ensued the moment he mentioned Vincent's name to her; but that unlucky deception had complicated the mischief beyond repair. It was too late now to tell him that she did not love Vincent; he would only think her false or fickle. A woman who could act as she had done, or as she appeared to have done, was no wife for Henry Elliott.
There is no saying,