It took her long to do, for she was very cunning in the
doing of it; but at last it dropped from her in words that there was
a possibility--a bare possibility--that some disappointment might
even yet be in store for them.
"Do you mean, mamma, that the marriage will be put off?"
"I don't mean to say that I think it will; God forbid! but it is just
possible. I dare say that I am very wrong to tell you this, but I
know that you have sense enough to bear it. Papa has gone to London,
and we shall hear from him soon."
"Then, mamma, I had better give them orders not to go on with the
marking."
CHAPTER XLVI
Lady Lufton's Request
The bailiffs on that day had their meals regular--and their beer,
which state of things, together with an absence of all duty in the
way of making inventories and the like, I take to be the earthly
paradise of bailiffs; and on the next morning they walked off with
civil speeches and many apologies as to their intrusion. "They was
very sorry," they said, "to have troubled a gen'leman as were a
gen'leman, but in their way of business what could they do?" To
which one of them added a remark that, "business is business." This
statement I am not prepared to contradict, but I would recommend all
men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology
at every turn; either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion
of right.
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