North and South | Page 6

winter in Italy. Mrs. Shaw had as strong wishes as most
people, but she never liked to do anything from the open and
acknowledged motive of her own good will and pleasure; she preferred
being compelled to gratify herself by some other person's command or
desire. She really did persuade herself that she was submitting to some

hard external necessity; and thus she was able to moan and complain in
her soft manner, all the time she was in reality doing just what she
liked.
It was in this way she began to speak of her own journey to Captain
Lennox, who assented, as in duty bound, to all his future mother-in-law
said, while his eyes sought Edith, who was busying herself in
rearranging the tea-table, and ordering up all sorts of good things, in
spite of his assurances that he had dined within the last two hours.
Mr. Henry Lennox stood leaning against the chimney-piece, amused
with the family scene. He was close by his handsome brother; he was
the plain one in a singularly good-looking family; but his face was
intelligent, keen, and mobile; and now and then Margaret wondered
what it was that he could be thinking about, while he kept silence, but
was evidently observing, with an interest that was slightly sarcastic, all
that Edith and she were doing. The sarcastic feeling was called out by
Mrs. Shaw's conversation with his brother; it was separate from the
interest which was excited by what he saw. He thought it a pretty sight
to see the two cousins so busy in their little arrangements about the
table. Edith chose to do most herself. She was in a humour to enjoy
showing her lover how well she could behave as a soldier's wife. She
found out that the water in the urn was cold, and ordered up the great
kitchen tea-kettle; the only consequence of which was that when she
met it at the door, and tried to carry it in, it was too heavy for her, and
she came in pouting, with a black mark on her muslin gown, and a little
round white hand indented by the handle, which she took to show to
Captain Lennox, just like a hurt child, and, of course, the remedy was
the same in both cases. Margaret's quickly-adjusted spirit-lamp was the
most efficacious contrivance, though not so like the gypsy-encampment
which Edith, in some of her moods, chose to consider the nearest
resemblance to a barrack-life. After this evening all was bustle till the
wedding was over.
CHAPTER II
ROSES AND THORNS

'By the soft green light in the woody glade, On the banks of moss
where thy childhood played; By the household tree, thro' which thine
eye First looked in love to the summer sky.' MRS. HEMANS.
Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home
with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding. Her mother
had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of
which anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly
aware that all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was
midway between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that,
as he had not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she
would not show herself at her only sister's only child's wedding. If Mrs.
Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany
her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it
was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty
Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that
of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on
which she could descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married
the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the
sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one so seldom sees. Mr. Hale
was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a
perfect model of a parish priest. Perhaps it was not quite a logical
deduction from all these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's
characteristic conclusion, as she thought over her sister's lot: 'Married
for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?' Mrs.
Hale, if she spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, 'a
silver-grey glace silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things for the
wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.' Margaret only knew
that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not
sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would take place at
Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of the last two or
three days, in