The Trial | Page 4

of the Daisy Chain"
by Charlotte M. Yonge was scanned and proofed by Sandra Laythorpe,
[email protected], from the 1898 edition published by MacMillan
and Co., Ltd., London.
A Web Page for Miss Yonge may be found at
www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm.

THE TRIAL
or
MORE LINKS OF THE DAISY CHAIN
CHAPTER I

Quand on veut dessecher un marais, on ne fait pas voter les grenouilles.
--Mme. EMILE. DE GIRADIN
'Richard? That's right! Here's a tea-cup waiting for you,' as the almost
thirty-year-old Incumbent of Cocksmoor, still looking like a young
deacon, entered the room with his quiet step, and silent greeting to its
four inmates.

'Thank you, Ethel. Is papa gone out?'
'I have not seen him since dinner-time. You said he was gone out with
Dr. Spencer, Aubrey?'
'Yes, I heard Dr. Spencer's voice--"I say, Dick"--like three notes of
consternation,' said Aubrey; 'and off they went. I fancy there's some
illness about in the Lower Pond Buildings, that Dr. Spencer has been
raging so long to get drained.'
'The knell has been ringing for a little child there,' added Mary;
'scarlatina, I believe--'
'But, Richard,' burst forth the merry voice of the youngest, 'you must
see our letters from Edinburgh.'
'You have heard, then? It was the very thing I came to ask.'
'Oh yes! there were five notes in one cover,' said Gertrude. 'Papa says
they are to be laid up in the family archives, and labelled "The Infants'
Honeymoon."'
'Papa is very happy with his own share,' said Ethel. 'It was signed, "Still
his own White Flower," and it had two Calton Hill real daisies in it. I
don't know when I have seen him more pleased.'
'And Hector's letter--I can say that by heart,' continued Gertrude. '"My
dear Father, This is only to say that she is the darlint, and for the
pleasure of subscribing myself--Your loving SON,"--the son as big as
all the rest put together.'
'I tell Blanche that he only took her for the pleasure of being my father's
son,' said Aubrey, in his low lazy voice.
'Well,' said Mary, 'even to the last, I do believe he had as soon drive
papa out as walk with Blanche. Flora was quite scandalized at it.'
'I should not imagine that George had often driven my father out,' said
Aubrey, again looking lazily up from balancing his spoon.

Ethel laughed; and even Richard smiled; then recovering herself, she
said, 'Poor Hector, he never could call himself son to any one before.'
'He has not been much otherwise here,' said Richard.
'No,' said Ethel; 'it is the peculiar hardship of our weddings to break us
up by pairs, and carry off two instead of one. Did you ever see me with
so shabby a row of tea-cups? When shall I have them come in riding
double again?'
The recent wedding was the third in the family; the first after a five
years' respite. It ensued upon an attachment that had grown up with the
young people, so that they had been entirely one with each other; and
there had been little of formal demand either of the maiden's affection
or her father's consent; but both had been implied from the first. The
bridegroom was barely of age, the bride not seventeen, and Dr. May
had owned it was very shocking, and told Richard to say nothing about
it! Hector had coaxed and pleaded, pathetically talked of his great
empty house at Maplewood, and declared that till he might take
Blanche away, he would not leave Stoneborough; he would bring down
all sorts of gossip on his courtship, he would worry Ethel, and take care
she finished nobody's education. What did Blanche want with more
education? She knew enough for him. Couldn't Ethel be satisfied with
Aubrey and Gertrude? or he dared say she might have Mary too, if she
was insatiable. If Dr. May was so unnatural as to forbid him to hang
about the house, why, he would take rooms at the Swan. In fact, as Dr.
May observed, he treated him to a modern red-haired Scotch version of
'Make me a willow cabin at your gate;' and as he heartily loved Hector
and entirely trusted him, and Blanche's pretty head was a wise and
prudent one, what was the use of keeping the poor lad unsettled?
So Mrs. Rivers, the eldest sister and the member's wife, had come to
arrange matters and help Ethel, and a very brilliant wedding it had been.
Blanche was too entirely at home with Hector for flutterings or
agitations, and was too peacefully happy for grief at the separation,
which completed the destiny that she had always seen before her. She
was a picture of a bride; and when she and Hector hung round the
Doctor, insisting that Edinburgh should be the