The Amazing Marriage | Page 2

CERTAIN CHANGES MAY BE
DISCERNED XXXVI. BELOW THE SURFACE AND ABOVE
XXXVII. BETWEEN CARINTHIA AND HER LORD XXXVIII. A
DIP INTO THE SPRING'S WATERS
BOOK 5. XXXIX. THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF
VAPOUR XL. A RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS XLI. IN
WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE
REFUGES FROM THEM XLII. THE RETARDED COURTSHIP
XLIII. ON THE ROAD TO THE ACT OF PENANCE XLIV.
BETWEEN THE EARL; THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER,
AND OF A SILVER CROSS XLV. CONTAINS A RECORD OF
WHAT WAS FEARED, WHAT WAS HOPED, AND WHAT
HAPPENED XLVI. A
CHAPTER OF
UNDERCURRENTS AND SOME SURFACE FLASHES XLVII.
THE LAST: WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME

THE AMAZING MARRIAGE
BOOK 1.
I. ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS II. MISTRESS GOSSIP
TELLS OF THE ELOPEMENT OF THE COUNTESS OF CRESSETT
WITH THE OLD BUCCANEER, AND OF CHARLES DUMP THE
POSTILLION CONDUCTING THEM, AND OF A GREAT
COUNTY FAMILY III. CONTINUATION OF THE
INTRODUCTORY MEANDERINGS OF DAME GOSSIP,
TOGETHER WITH HER SUDDEN EXTINCTION IV. MORNING
AND FAREWELL TO AN OLD HOME V. A MOUNTAIN WALK
IN MIST AND SUNSHINE VI. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER VII.
THE LADY'S LETTER VIII. OF THE ENCOUNTER OF TWO
STRANGE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR CONSORTING: IN WHICH

THE MALE READER IS REQUESTED TO BEAR IN MIND WHAT
WILD CREATURE HE WAS IN HIS YOUTH, WHILE THE
FEMALE SHOULD MARVEL CREDULOUSLY IX. CONCERNING
THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER,
TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER
VOTARIES

CHAPTER I
ENTER DAME GOSSIP AS CHORUS
Everybody has heard of the beautiful Countess of Cressett, who was
one of the lights of this country at the time when crowned heads were
running over Europe, crying out for charity's sake to be amused after
their tiresome work of slaughter: and you know what a dread they have
of moping. She was famous for her fun and high spirits besides her
good looks, which you may judge of for yourself on a walk down most
of our great noblemen's collections of pictures in England, where you
will behold her as the goddess Diana fitting an arrow to a bow; and
elsewhere an Amazon holding a spear; or a lady with dogs, in the
costume of the day; and in one place she is a nymph, if not Diana
herself, gazing at her naked feet before her attendants loosen her tunic
for her to take the bath, and her hounds are pricking their ears, and you
see antlers of a stag behind a block of stone. She was a wonderful
swimmer, among other things, and one early morning, when she was a
girl, she did really swim, they say, across the Shannon and back to win
a bet for her brother Lord Levellier, the colonel of cavalry, who left an
arm in Egypt, and changed his way of life to become a wizard, as the
common people about his neighbourhood supposed, because he
foretold the weather and had cures for aches and pains without a
doctor's diploma. But we know now that he was only a mathematician
and astronomer, all for inventing military engines. The brother and
sister were great friends in their youth, when he had his right arm to
defend her reputation with; and she would have done anything on earth
to please him.
There is a picture of her in an immense flat white silk hat trimmed with

pale blue, like a pavilion, the broadest brim ever seen, and she simply
sits on a chair; and Venus the Queen of Beauty would have been
extinguished under that hat, I am sure; and only to look at Countess
Fanny's eye beneath the brim she has tipped ever so slightly in her
artfulness makes the absurd thing graceful and suitable. Oh! she was a
cunning one. But you must be on your guard against the
scandalmongers and collectors of anecdotes, and worst of any, the critic,
of our Galleries of Art; for she being in almost all of them (the
principal painters of the day were on their knees for the favour of a
sitting), they have to speak of her pretty frequently, and they season
their dish, the coxcombs do, by hinting a knowledge of her history.
'Here we come to another portrait of the beautiful but, we fear, naughty
Countess of Cressett.'
You are to imagine that they know everything, and they are so
indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady's character.
They can boast of nothing more than having read Nymriey's Letters and
Correspondence, published, fortunately for him, when he was no longer
to be called to account below for his malicious insinuations, pretending
to decency in initials and dashes: That man was a hater of women and
the clergy. He was one of