according to custom, sobriety at these bridal feasts was, we are told,
"a positive violation of all good breeding, and the guests would have
thought themselves highly dishonoured had the bridegroom escaped
scathless from the wedding banquet."

Accordingly, half unconscious of passing events, George Evans was
conducted to the altar, where the marriage knot was indissolubly tied.
But, as soon as he had recovered from the effects of the bridal feast,
he discovered, to his intense horror and dismay, that the bride he had
taken was not the woman of his choice--in short, he was the victim of
a cheat. Indignant at this cruel imposture, he ascertained that the
plot emanated from the woman who, till then, had been the ideal of his
soul, and that she had substituted her veiled sister Anne for herself
at the altar. The remainder of this strange affair is briefly
told:--George Evans had one, and only one, interview with his wife,
and thus addressed her in the following words: "Madam, you have
attained your end. I need not say how you bear my name; and, for the
sake of your family, I acknowledge you as my wife. You shall receive
an income from me suitable to your situation. This, probably, is all
you cared for with regard to me, and you and I shall meet no more in
this world."

[Illustration: "MADAM, YOU HAVE ATTAINED YOUR END. YOU AND I SHALL
MEET NO MORE IN THIS WORLD."]

He would allow no explanation, and almost immediately left his home
and country, never to meet again the woman who had so basely betrayed
him. The glory of Bulgaden Hall was gone. Its young master, in order
to quench his sorrow and bury his disgust, gave way to every kind of
dissipation, and died its victim in 1769. And, writes Sir Bernard