[ILLUSTRATION: THE MIMIC HUNT.]
At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still wore that species
of shooting-costume which he had made his uniform, but it was decked
with roses, and his hands were encased in milk-white gloves: on his
hands, besides the gloves, he had the two grammatical ladies from
the Rhine steamboat in guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary
Ashburleigh. And emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress,
with the embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, was--no?
yes! no, no! but yes--was Sylvester Berkley. I will not expose what I
suffered to the curiosity of imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did
not faint, and I believe men in genuine despair never do so. But
I felt that weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with
strong mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose
lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both accumulated
miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I did not hear the Dark
Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But I awoke to see with anguish a
sight that drew involuntary applause from all that careless crowd.
It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, two
great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of an Eden
spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted dew,--imagine
them leaning forward on their elastic stems until both their soft
velvet countenances cling together and exchange mutually their
caparisons of honeyed gems; then let them sway gently back, and
balance once more in their morning splendor.
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