Kitty wrote her deep regrets, but her people had suddenly determined to go abroad and she could not lose this chance of seeing the world; "the governess's honeymoon," she christened it. Paris, Switzerland, Rome,--all the magic places were to be hers,--and Salvina, reading the letter, gasped with sympathy and longing. But the happy traveller was represented at the wedding by a large bronze-looking knight on horseback, which towered in shining green over the insignificant gifts of the Jonas's circle; the utilitarian salad-bowls, and fish-slices, and dessert sets. One other present stood out luridly, but only to Salvina. It was a glossy arm-chair, and on the seat lay a card: "From Rhoda's loving father-in-law." When Salvina first saw this--at a family card-party, the Sunday evening before the wedding--she started and flushed so furiously that Lazarus had to give her a warning nudge, and to whisper: "Only for appearance." At the supper-table old Jonas, who carved and jested with much appreciation of his own skill in both departments, referred facetiously to the absent father, who might, nevertheless, be said to be "in the chair" on that occasion. Salvina dressed her mother as carefully for the ceremony as though Kitty's fears were being realized and Mrs. Brill was the bride of the occasion; and so debonair a figure emerged from the ordeal that you could recognize Kitty's mother instead of Salvina's. Lazarus had spent his farewell evening of bachelorhood at an hotel, justly complaining that a mirrorless bed-room with a straw mattress was no place for a bridegroom to issue from. Never had bridegroom been so ill-treated, he grumbled; and he shook his fist imaginatively at the father who had despoiled him. But he joined his mother and sister in the cab; and as it approached the synagogue, he said suddenly: "Don't be shocked--but I rather expect father will be at the _Shool_ (synagogue)." "What!" and Mrs. Brill appeared like to faint. "He wouldn't have the cheek," Salvina said reassuringly, as she pulled out the smelling-salts which Kitty had not needed. "He wouldn't have the cheek _not_ to come," said Lazarus. "I asked him." "You!" They glared at him in horror. "Yes; I wasn't going to have things look funny--I hate explanations. The Jonases thought there was something queer the other night, when you both bungled the explanation of the rheumatism, spite all my coaching." "But where did you find him?" said the mother excitedly. "At Clacton-on-Sea." Salvina bit her lip. "I sent in my card,--'Laurence Beryl, of Granders Brothers.' When he saw me, I thought he would have had a fit. I told him if he didn't come up to the wedding and play heavy father, I'd summons him--" "Summons him!" echoed Mrs. Brill. "For stealing my old arm-chair. I remembered--ha! ha! ha!--it was I that had bought the easy-chair for myself, when we lived in Spitalfields and had only wooden chairs." "So he _did_ send that easy-chair!" said Salvina.