There was, indeed, little that they could talk
about. One would not mention his estate, the other his wife, and as for
his book, this having been a great failure, and an expensive one, was
also a sore subject. Almost all they said when alone concerned the
coming marriage, which pleased them both, and a yachting tour.
"I thought you had settled into a domestic character, St. George?" said
Valentine.
"So did I, but Tom Graham, Dorothea's brother, is not going on well, he
is tired of a sea life, and has left his uncle, as he says, for awhile.
So as the old man longs for Dorothea, I have agreed to take her and the
child, and go for a tour of a few months with him to the Mediterranean.
It is no risk for the little chap, as his nurse, Mrs. Brand, feels more
at home at sea than on shore."
On the morning of the wedding Valentine sauntered down from his sister's
house to John Mortimer's garden. Emily had Dorothea with her, and Giles
was to give her away. She was agitated, and she made him feel more so
than usual; a wedding at which Brandon and Dorothea were to be present
would at any time have made him feel in a somewhat ridiculous position,
but just then he was roused by the thought of it from those ideas and
speculations in the presence of which he ever dwelt, so that, on the
whole, though it excited it refreshed him.
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