It was on the morning of the day fixed that a letter came to me
whose contents seemed to burn themselves into my brain. Martyn
called across the breakfast-table, 'Look at Edward! Has any one
sent you a young basilisk?'
'I wish it was,' I gasped out.
'Don't look so,' entreated Emily. 'Tell us! Is it Griff?'
'Not ill-hurt?' cried my mother. 'Oh no, no. Worse!' and then
somehow I articulated that he was married; and Clarence exclaimed,
'Not the Peacock!' and at my gesture my father broke out. 'He has
done for himself, the unhappy boy. A disgraceful Scotch marriage.
Eh?'
'It was his sense of honour,' I managed to utter.
'Sense of fiddlestick!' said my poor father. 'Don't stop to excuse
him. We've had enough of that! Let us hear.'
I cannot give a copy of the letter. It was so painful that it was
destroyed; for there was a tone of bravado betraying his uneasiness,
but altogether unbecoming. All that it disclosed was, that some one
staying in the same house had paid insulting attentions to Lady
Peacock; she had thrown herself on our brother's protection, and
after interfering on her behalf, he had found that there was no
means of sheltering her but by making her his wife. This had been
effected by the assistance of the lady of the house where they had
been staying; and Griffith had written to me two days later from
Edinburgh, declaring that Selina had only to be known to be loved,
and to overcome all prejudices.
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