'Congratulations, dear Algy; the happy day has dawned.--Yours most sincerely, 'CHESTER.' 'Among other disasters, you will lose this friend, Algy,' moaned his father. 'No one can ever speak to you again; no one can----' 'Tell my mother, sir, that I am ready,' he interrupted, with a most extraordinary change of manner. 'I will be with her as soon as I can complete my toilet. One must be smart upon one's wedding-day. Go, dear father, tell her I am coming downstairs, and beg her not to make a row--I mean, not to allude to the late distressing scene.' He pushed his father out of the room. Two minutes later he stood in the breakfast-room, actually laughing as if nothing had happened. 'I am glad my son,' said his mother, 'that you have returned to your senses.' 'Yes,' he replied gaily, as if it had been a question of some simple act of petulance; 'it is a good thing, isn't it? Have you seen Lord Chester's gift, sisters?' The girls looked at each other in a kind of stupor. What _could_ men be like that they should so lightly pass from one extreme to the other? 'Tell the boy,' he ordered the footman, 'to lead the horse to the Green; I should like all the lads to see it. Tell them it is Lord Chester's gift, with his congratulations on the dawn of the happy day--tell them to remember the dawn of the happy day.' He seemed to talk nonsense in his excitement. But Sir Robert, overjoyed at this sudden return to obedience, shed tears. 'Now,' said Lady Dunquerque, 'we have no time to lose. Girls, you can go on with your father. Algernon, of course, accompanies me.' When they were left alone, his mother began a lecture, short but sharp, on the duty of marital obedience. 'I say no more,' she concluded,' on the lamentable display of temper of this morning. Under the circumstances, I pass it over on condition that you look your brightest and best all day, and that you show yourself alive to the happiness of the position I have gained for you.' 'I think,' he replied, 'that in the future, if not to-day, you will congratulate yourself on my line of action.' A strange thing for the young man to say. Afterwards they remembered it, and understood it. Meantime the churchyard was full of the village people, and the church was crammed with the guests in wedding-favours; on the Green the band was discoursing sweet music; in the centre, an object of the deepest admiration for the village lads, stood Lord Chester's gift, led by his boy.