II
PAUL AMBROSE did not die and leave his fortune to Halidon, but the
following summer he did something far more unexpected. He went
abroad again, and came back married. Now our busy fancy had never
seen Paul married. Even Ned recognized the vague unlikelihood of
such a metamorphosis.
"He'd stick at the parson's fee--not to mention the best man's
scarf-pin. And I should hate," Ned added sentimentally, "to see 'the
touch of a woman's hand' desecrate the sublime ugliness of the
ancestral home. Think of such a house made 'cozy'!"
But when the news came he would own neither to surprise nor to
disappointment.
"Goodbye, poor Academy!" I exclaimed, tossing over the bridegroom's
eight-page rhapsody to Halidon, who had received its duplicate by
the same post.
"Now, why the deuce do you say that?" he growled. "I never saw such
a beast as you are for imputing mean motives."
To defend myself from this accusation I put out my hand and
recovered Paul's letter.
"Here: listen to this.
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