had not many regrets herself but it pleased her to think that he should
have them. So Mary and Fanny Clavering were asked to attend her at the
altar. Mary and Fanny would both have preferred to decline, but their
mother had told them that they could not do so. "It would make
ill-feeling," said Mrs. Clavering; "and that is what your papa
particularly wishes to avoid."

"When you say papa particularly wishes anything, mamma, you always mean
that you wish it particularly yourself," said Fanny. "But if it must be
done, it must; and then I shall know how to behave when Mary's time
comes."

The bells were rung lustily all the morning, and all the parish was
there, round about the church, to see. There was no record of a lord
ever having been married in Clavering church before; and now this lord
was going to marry my lady's sister. It was all one as though she were a
Clavering herself. But there was no ecstatic joy in the parish. There
were to be no bonfires, and no eating and drinking at Sir Hugh's
expense--no comforts provided for any of the poor by Lady Clavering on
that special occasion. Indeed, there was never much of such kindnesses
between the lord of the soil and his dependants. A certain stipulated
dole was given at Christmas for coals and blankets; but even for that
there was generally some wrangle between the rector and the steward. "If
there's to be all this row about it," the rector had said to the
steward, "I'll never ask for it again." "I wish my uncle would only be
as good as his word," Sir Hugh had said, when the rector's speech was
repeated to him. Therefore, there was not much of real rejoicing in the
parish on this occasion, though the bells were rung loudly, and though
the people, young and old, did cluster round the churchyard to see the
lord lead his bride out of the church. "A puir feckless thing, tottering