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words of the service, and could not endure the sight of the Archbishop; and adds, that the king said the words hastily, upon which the Archbishop pronounced them married persons. "Upon this," he continues, "some thought afterwards to have dissolved the marriage as a marriage only de facto, in which no consent had been given, but the Duke of York told me they were married by the Lord Aubergrey according to Roman ritual, and he himself was one of the witnesses; and he added, that a few days before he told me, the queen had said to him that she heard some intended to call her marriage in question, and if that was the case, she must call on him as one of the witnesses to prove it."

Now for Lady Fanshawe's account of the same transaction. "Upon the 21st of May the king married the queen at Portsmouth in the presencechamber of his Majesty's house. There was a rail across the upper part of the room, in which entered only the king and queen, the Bishop of London, the Marquis Desande, the Portuguese Ambassador, and my husband; in the other part of the room, there were many of the nobility and servants to their Majesties. The Bishop of London declared them married, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and then they caused the ribbons her Majesty wore to be cut in pieces, and so far as they would go every one had some." Et voilà comme on écrit l'histoire.

Early in 1662, Sir Richard was nominated Privy Councillor of Ireland, and in August was again sent on an embassy to Lisbon, on his return from which, after a year's residence, he waited on the king at Bath, and was raised to the rank of Privy Councillor. In January 1664, he was appointed ambassador at the court of Madrid, from which he was never to return alive. His death has been imputed by some to a broken heart, for it occurred immediately after his recall, on the refusal of the king to ratify a treaty he had signed with the Spanish minister. His death occurred on the 26th of June 1666. Lady Fanshawe describes her sufferings under this terrible bereavement in terms deeply touching from their unaffected simplicity. She determined to accompany her husband's corpse to England, but had previously received the offer from the Queen Regent of Spain of a pension and a provision for her children if she would embrace the Catholic faith, an offer which was naturally refused.

My task is now over, and little more remains to tell of this admirable woman than that she experienced the usual ingratitude and neglect which the most faithful servants of Charles had to complain of. It was with the utmost difficulty she could obtain the arrears due to her husband, which were not fully paid till the end of three years. Her memoirs, from which this account of her has been gathered, were composed in 1676, and in 1680 she died, and was privately buried, by her desire, in the chapel of St. Inez in Ware Church, by the side of that husband to whom she had been so devoted and exemplary a wife, for whom and with whom she had bravely dared and suffered so much.

For Better, for Worse.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MARGARET wrote herself to Mr. Weldon and to Horace Chudleigh; to the latter she felt it was due he should learn, through her own hand, how gladly she would have spared him the pain and mortification of the previous day. To Mr. Weldon she wrote as she would have done to a father. That she succeeded in convincing him she had not willingly misled his nephew, was proved by his hearty congratulations by return of post, and the readiness with which he came to town and performed the ceremony.

A quiet subdued feeling of happiness, like a stream of evening sunshine after a wild blusterous day, had fallen around Margaret. "What the world said," had no fears for her. Guy's acknowledged love for her, and hers for him, had lightened her heart of a load, which had been silently gathering over and around it, until, in spite of her well-balanced mind and firm religious principles, it nearly absorbed her in a hopeless gulf of despair. So while she sat quietly in her room, writing long loving letters to Grace and Frank, apprising them of the change which a few hours had made in her prospects, and pouring out her full heart to Ralph and Katie, and congratulating them on their sudden acquisition of wealth, she was quite willing to leave every thing to the energetic superintendence of Ethelind, whose little head seemed hent on having every thing connected with the wedding entirely after her own heart.

Under Guy's quiet exterior lurked an undefined dread, which so often comes with the accomplishment of an absorbing, long-coveted desire, a foreshadowing, as it were, of the uncertain tenure of all earthly happiness. Then, too, there was the din of war sounding in his ears, and the agony of suspense to which she, who waited patiently at home, must of necessity be subjected. And Margaret, outwardly calm, and pale as the white mist of lace and silk about her, was thanking God from the bottom of her heart that, come what might, she had an undisputed right to the privilege of sharing in the glories she believed him destined to win, or else to make no secret of her sorrow if the brief fortnight before them should prove the limit of sunshine which had so suddenly fallen around her.

Even Barbara was touched and steadied by the solemnity of the service.

"I never could have believed," she said in a changed and subdued voice, as she followed Miss Gwynne into the carriage, "that a wedding could be so affecting. I am sure I could hear my own heart beat, and I thought I should have burst into tears. What a dear old man Mr. Weldon is no wonder his nephew thinks so much of him. I am determined, if ever I commit myself, I will ask him to come and perform the cere

mony for me. By the way," she added, a few minutes afterwards, "what a bore it must be to have to go on Circuit. I'll be bound for it, Mr. Chudleigh would have given his best wig to have played truant, in spite of that handsome retainer he wrote about, if he could only have been here to-day, and had a sight of Miss Atherton in her bridal dress."

If Miss Gwynne had her own private reasons for thinking differently, she was too busy wiping away her tears to attempt to undeceive her volatile companions.

Three weeks after their marriage, Ralph Atherton and his sister stood amidst a dense mass of anxious wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, bidding farewell to many a brave fellow who would never return to their loving embrace.

White and rigid as marble, Margaret had given no other outward manifestation of her intense agony. An order was suddenly given to clear the decks. Guy looked round for the boat which was lying at the foot of the companion-ladder. A hundred eyes turned away sorrowfully, that the tall handsome officer and his young stricken wife might be undisturbed in their sad parting. Guy spoke a few hurried words to Ralph, and before Margaret-scarcely conscious of any thing around her-knew what they were doing, her brother and husband had placed her in the

stern.

"Trust in God, Margaret! here, or in heaven, we shall meet again," Guy whispered, as he strained her convulsively to his bosom, while his tears fell on her white cheek. Then, hurriedly wringing Ralph's hand, he dashed back into the melée on deck.

The long measured sweep of the boatmen's oars against the rowlocks first roused Margaret to a consciousness that it might be she and her husband would never meet again in this world.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

It was the summer of 1855. Large preparations for another winter in the Crimea were making. England, with a natural impatience, was wearying and growing angry at the prolonged siege. Ministers were openly abused for not taking more vigorous measures, though each department of the State was strained to the utmost, forwarding every conceivable amount of supplies to the brave troops for another weary winter in the Crimea.

Aunt Sarah, who would seldom open a paper, and never listened to the long articles Margaret read, word for word, from the glowing pen of the Times correspondent, had strolled out into her orchard, leaving her niece absorbed in the Times; when suddenly the door of the sunny parlour in Acre Lane was thrown open, and the Earl of Redenham announced. It was his and Margaret's first meeting since they had parted on her wedding-day. A marked change had come over Philip during the last twelvemonth. His pale sallow face, and careworn and harassed expression, almost startled her, and she would have believed some bad

news had prompted this visit, had she not just read in the Times newspaper a reformation of the Ministry.

"Mrs. Vyvian," Philip said, "it is quite refreshing to look at you, you are so bright and sunshiny! As for me, I am perfectly worn out, and heartily glad to be released from the onerous duties which, while they have harassed us all to death, have failed in giving satisfaction any where."

"It is the fate of great men, Lord Redenham," Margaret replied, "never to receive justice till their deeds have become the property of the historians. John Bull was never famous for his patience. He can endure with heroic fortitude any amount of active suffering, but this long suspense, this weary waiting and expectation, tries his temper dreadfully." "I think of going out to the Crimea in a few days, Mrs. Vyvian," Philip replied, "that I may see with my own eyes the condition of our troops. I start next week."

"And Ethel-what becomes of her in your absence? Will she not be very uneasy at your going?"

Philip's lips grew white and rigid.

"I cannot tell," he said slowly, "but I think not. Mrs. Vyvian, you have cares enough on you already; it is a shame in me to add a feather's weight to them. But it was to ask you to look after Ethelind I came here to-day. She would be very angry if she knew of my visit; but if she ever requires help or counsel, I am sure you will not refuse it, and I can fully trust you. From no one else would she submit to receive it. I cannot tell you for how long, it may be months, years, perhaps for ever, but it is right I should tell you, we are separated."

Margaret started to her feet.

"Lord Redenham," she exclaimed, "you cannot, you do not mean what you say?"

Philip's face had sunk on his crossed hands, while his fingers nervously grasped the top of his walking-stick.

"It is too true," he said at last, slowly raising his white face. "The world knows nothing of it yet; and by every arrangement in my power I have endeavoured to prevent a necessity for its doing so, but such nevertheless is the fact. My visit to the Crimea is a natural sequence to my resigning office, and for a time it will stop inquiring. But we all know how fast the least breath of scandal flies; and of course, sooner or later, it must come out."

"O Lord Redenham!" Margaret replied, "are you not under some delusion, some great mistake? Ethel has been unsettled and unhappy, I know; but she is neither wilful nor headstrong; and then, too, she is so young, so easily led, so dependent on the love of her friends. Surely, surely you must have fallen among bad advisers."

"Would to Heaven I dared think so, Mrs. Vyvian; but I cannot. I knew how my visit would grieve you, and yet I could not but come, for if any one can help her it is yourself. I shall leave her in your care, and

VOL. III.

P

if—; but it is of no use attempting to enter into details. To estimate truly the miserable life we have been leading for the last five years, getting gradually from bad to worse, you must have been constantly under our roof."

"But if you had talked to Ethel, reasoned with her, explained, do you not think the cause for your mutual uneasiness would have been removed?"

"Then we must undoubtedly have quarrelled long ago. As it has been, we have lived lives as much apart as if we had never been covered by one roof. There has been no love, no sympathy, no desire to please, no mutual ground on which we could take our stand; and yet, strange to say, it would puzzle either of us, I do believe, to declare what the rupture is about. It has grown up and taken root and spread, until our peace and comfort is quite gone, and I can see no other method of unravelling this vexed question but by separation."

"But it was not so when I was with you?"

"While you were with us, Mrs. Vyvian, I really began to hope a brighter prospect was opening on us. But it vanished soon after you left. Some trivial spark set her jealousy on fire,-for jealous, I fear, she is, though of whom or what I have no conception,—and since that we have gone on from bad to worse. As to poor little Leigh, he is on the high road to ruin; while, for the life of me, I dare not even mention the name of my little Beatrice, or I bring upon myself a whirlwind of trouble. However," and Lord Redenham's mouth became rigid, "there is an end to it now. I have made all my arrangements. She has unlimited power to draw on my banker; and she has (until my return, at all events) perfect freedom to choose her residence, wherever it best suits her. My yacht, too, for she has grown suddenly into a violent passion for yachting, is left at her disposal. She is now at Cowes, and I came to you to ask, as a great favour, that you will go there and see her. If any one can help her, Mrs. Vyvian, you are the person; and though we can never be again as we were to each other, still I would most carefully shield her from the very shadow of blame if I could.”

Margaret sank down in her seat, half stunned by this disclosure.

"It must have been jealousy of your devotion to politics, Lord Redenham," she said at last. "I heard her say your country absorbed all your energies; that you gave up every thing for politics."

"Perhaps I have; and I have paid dearly for it. The only reward I have received has been unsparing abuse from the press, and the loss of all my domestic peace."

Lord Redenham rose up to go; Margaret rose also.

"In a political point of view, it is sure to come right. History will do you justice, though the country is so sore now over her disappointment. Perhaps when you are away my poor Ethie will regret her folly. Perhaps you may then both acknowledge that any life is better than one of entire separation and distrust. If it should be so,-if I really find it is

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