Again cordial courtesies were dropped at the thresholds by which the Squire passed to his home-farm; again the sun-burnt brows uncovered--no more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness at his nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient rendezvous by the Stocks, as if either familiarized with the phenomenon, or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will, its powers of evil were annulled. The Squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably deplore; viz., the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the Squire enjoyed this restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence; his stout heart beat more vigorously; his stalwart step trod more lightly; his comely English face looked comelier and more English than ever--you would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within hearing of his jovial laugh. He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of Providence in this general _integratio amoris_. To have looked at him, you would suppose that it was the Squire who was going to be married a second time to his Harry! One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples. To have stopped that marriage--chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village--seen himself surrounded again by long sulky visages--I verily believe, though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that, rather than court such a revulsion, the Squire would have found jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to be the Pope in disguise! As for the Stocks, their fate was now irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded--first privately, according to the bridegroom's creed, by a Roman Catholic clergyman, who lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the village church of Hazeldean.