The girl was nineteen--six years
older than Dicky in the things of this world, that is to say--and, for the
time, twice as foolish as he.
Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is nothing more fatally easy than
marriage before the Registrar. The ceremony costs less than fifty shillings,
and is remarkably like walking into a pawn-shop. After the declarations of
residence have been put in, four minutes will cover the rest of the
proceedings--fees, attestation, and all. Then the Registrar slides the
blotting-pad over the names, and says grimly, with his pen between his teeth:--
"Now you're man and wife;" and the couple walk out into the street, feeling as
if something were horribly illegal somewhere.
But that ceremony holds and can drag a man to his undoing just as thoroughly as
the "long as ye both shall live" curse from the altar-rails, with the
bridesmaids giggling behind, and "The Voice that breathed o'er Eden" lifting
the roof off. In this manner was Dicky Hatt kidnapped, and he considered it
vastly fine, for he had received an appointment in India which carried a
magnificent salary from the Home point of view. The marriage was to be kept
secret for a year. Then Mrs. Dicky Hatt was to come out and the rest of life
was to be a glorious golden mist.
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