The father and mother sat by the fireplace that was spanned by the
four-centred arch bearing the family shields on its haunches, and
groaned aloud--the lady more than Sir John.
'To think this should have come upon us in our old age!' said he.
'Speak for yourself!' she snapped through her sobs. 'I am only one-
and-forty! . . . Why didn't ye ride faster and overtake 'em!'
In the meantime the young married lovers, caring no more about their
blood than about ditch-water, were intensely happy--happy, that is,
in the descending scale which, as we all know, Heaven in its wisdom
has ordained for such rash cases; that is to say, the first week
they were in the seventh heaven, the second in the sixth, the third
week temperate, the fourth reflective, and so on; a lover's heart
after possession being comparable to the earth in its geologic
stages, as described to us sometimes by our worthy President; first
a hot coal, then a warm one, then a cooling cinder, then chilly--the
simile shall be pursued no further. The long and the short of it
was that one day a letter, sealed with their daughter's own little
seal, came into Sir John and Lady Grebe's hands; and, on opening it,
they found it to contain an appeal from the young couple to Sir John
to forgive them for what they had done, and they would fall on their
naked knees and be most dutiful children for evermore.
Then Sir John and his lady sat down again by the fireplace with the
four-centred arch, and consulted, and re-read the letter.
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