morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to twelve, by
licence, at the Kensington parish church."

"Then that was his appointment!" Mrs. Doria murmured.

"That was the cake for breakfast!" breathed a second of her sex.

"And it was his ring!" exclaimed a third.

The men were silent, and made long faces.

Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided each other's
eyes.

"Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?"

"The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid," said
Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents.

Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. Doria cried,
"Brandon!" She was a woman of energy. Her thoughts resolved to action
spontaneously.

"Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, "can they not be
followed, and separated? I want your advice. Cannot we separate them?
A boy! it is really shameful if he should be allowed to fall into the
toils of a designing creature to ruin himself irrevocably. Can we not,
Brandon?"

The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered her