Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 | Page 7

what we expected.'
'On the contrary,' returned Major Elliott, 'you must both congratulate
me on my good-fortune.'
'Silly girl!' said Mr Gaskoin, shaking his friend heartily by the hand. 'I
see what it is: she is nervous about a little deception we have been
practising on you.'
'A deception!'
'Why, you see, my dear fellow, when I told Frances that you were
coming here, she objected to meeting you'----
'Indeed! On what account?'
'You have never suspected anything?' said Mr Gaskoin, scarcely
repressing his laughter.
'Suspected anything? 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