Wilson and Eve for a whole week, the tears would not be denied;
and, to show how perilous a road matrimony is, these two risked a
misunderstanding on their wedding-day, thus: Lucy, all alone in the
post-chaise with David, dissolved--a perfect Niobe--gushing at short
intervals. Sometimes a faint explanation gurgled out with the tears:
"Poor Eve! her dear little face was working so not to cry. Oh! oh! I
should not have minded so much if she had cried right out." Then,
again, it was "Poor Mrs. Wilson! I was only a week with her, for all
her love. I have made a c--at's p--paw of her--oh!"
Then, again, "Uncle Bazalgette has never noticed us; he thinks me a
h--h--ypocrite." But quite as often they flowed without any
accompanying reason.
Now if David had been a poetaster, he would have said: "Why these
tears? she has got me. Am I not more than an equivalent to these puny
considerations?" and all this salt water would have burned into his
vanity like liquid caustic. If he had been a poet, he would have said:
"Alas! I make her unhappy whom I hoped to make happy"; and with this
he would have been sad, and so prolonged her sadness, and perhaps
ended by sulking. But David had two good things--a kind heart and a
skin not too thin: and such are the men that make women happy, in
spite of their weak nerves and craven spirits.
He gave her time; soothed her kindly; but did not check her weakness
dead short.
At last my Lady Chesterfield said to him, penitently, "This is a poor
compliment to you, Mr.
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