Mary was more affected by it than she had ever been by anything in her life. John!--she said to herself that he had always taken her part, always been kind to her. Like the rest of the family, she had regretted sometimes that the dashing Percy, who was so much nicer to look at, so much more of a personage, so full of spirit and life, had not been the elder brother. But Percy would have kept all his pounds to himself, everybody knew, though he had the air of being far more open-handed than his brother. Percy, however, on this emergency came out too in a very good light. He sent her a set of gold ornaments, a necklace and a bracelet of Indian work, for he was in India at the time, along with a delightful letter, asking how she could answer to herself for marrying first of all, she, who had always been the little one, and who could only be, Percy thought, about fifteen now. “Tell Asquith I think he is a very lucky fellow,” Percy wrote. John never said a word, even at the wedding breakfast, when it was expected he should propose the health of the bride and bridegroom. All that he did was to get up from his seat, looking about him dully with those unsteady eyes, give a gasp like a fish, and then sit down again, his eyeglass rattling against his plate as it fell, which was the only sound he produced. But everybody knew what he meant, which was the great matter. And as for the “thettlement,” the wisest man in England could not have arranged it more securely than John had done. And so Mary and the curate were married in the late autumn, when the leaves were covering all the country roads, and the November fogs were coming on. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. “HAPPY EVER AFTER.”