Mrs. Oliphant

“ And the wedding next day was the prettiest wedding that had been seen in the island for many a day. And everybody was there; and it somehow crept out among the crowd that Edith Austen was making the finest match, and that her husband was no mere landscape-painter, as everybody had supposed, but a man with—Heaven only knew how many thousands a year. ”

“ Not now, when we are both young and free; we are to work together, and draw together, and never to have a dull hour,” Edith said, radiant with smiles.
Poor thing! poor young unthinking girl! But how was her mother to convince her that this was not the most desirable life in the world? Mrs. Austen did not think it at all desirable. What she wished for was a house,—it might be quite a small house to begin with—decently furnished, with a little plate for the table, which no doubt the friends of the young couple would give them as wedding presents, if properly directed thereto. ”

“ This, I suppose, was why, when his love came to the boiling pitch, he presented himself to the parents of his Edith solely as he was, or as appearances showed him, as an artist doing tolerably well in his profession, and able to keep his wife more or less comfortably. These parents were the vicar of a little parish in the Isle of Wight and his wife—good, honest people, who were naturally poor, and whose daughter, one of several, had shown some taste for drawing, and had been sent to such schools of art as they could hear of, or get at, to cultivate this faculty. ”

“ How can I ask him questions about his most intimate concerns, when we have nothing to give on our side?”
“What nonsense!” cried the troubled woman; “haven't we Edith to give—a girl that any man might be proud of. And she will have to give up her profession; and there probably will be—others to take into consideration. If he has no money to settle, you must make him insure his life.”
“My dear Mary!” said the Vicar in despair. “How am I to speak to a stranger like Mr. Rothbury about his most intimate concerns?”
“Oh, Edward, don't be so ridiculous!” Mrs. Austen cried ”

“ He had been absent for a little time, and had not heard, or pretended he had not heard, “about John,”—which was the manner in which the family described Edith's engagement. And he said, “Rothbury!—oh, he's a queer fellow!” when some one mentioned somewhat familiarly his name.
“How is he a queer fellow?” said Mrs. Austen, pricking up her ears
“Well, in every way, I think,” said the malevolent one. “He has always plenty of money, but no one knows where it comes from. As for his making three hundred a year, or one hundred a year, by selling his pictures, I don't believe a word of it. ”

“ I happen to know that he has houses in the best quarter of London.”
“Oh, that house in Belgravia!” the artist said; “everybody knows of that. It's part of the mystery. It is not let, Mrs. Austen, any more than I am. When he goes to town he goes there, and it's a palace. It's there he hangs all his pictures, I suppose, that he pretends to sell. He should have quite a gallery!” Gregory said, with a laugh. “And there's another queer thing about him which very few people know.”
The Vicar had been making signals of distress, betraying the part he took in the matter, to his wife for some moments. ”

“ Austen; “who is of any family nowadays? As long as a man has enough, and is presentable and well behaved, I don't think anything of his family, if that were all.”
“There was a great financial man, a stockbroker or something of the kind, of the name of Rothbury,” said the Vicar reflectively.
“If John had been connected with a man like that he would not have been brought up in a French village,” said Mrs. Austen, with most reasonable decision and firmness, cutting her husband short ”

“ He too admired and adored, and fell into despair over his own attempted renderings of these lovely things. And yet there was always a grace in his roughest studies, which was not lost even in the most elaborate of his pictures, the grace of a real sense of beauty and a real sympathy with life. ”

“ If it had been to dinner, indeed, or even to supper—but a cup of tea and a piece of cake or bread and butter, of what consequence could that be in a house where so much of those simple dainties was consumed every day? ”

“ Rothbury, the rent was to be the provision for Edith; the settlement——”
“Oh, was it?” he said lightly; “well, we must put something in its place.”
“But—it was a great part of your income, I understood. I am afraid you are not a very good man of business. A house to live in is of great importance; but something to live upon is more important still.”
“That will be all right, Mrs. Austen. The lawyers will look after that. Edith and I will do very well. I assure you you need not fear.”
“That is all very well,” she said, with a troubled countenance; “but the Vicar will insist on guarantees. ”

“ He can't paint a little bit. He copies Millet—French Millet, you know, like all those Paris fellows. I am not sure that I think such a lot of Millet as some do—but his imitators! And yet the fellow has always plenty of money, and flings it about like a lord.” Mr. Gregory was aware of more than one loan which never would be repaid to John, but which burned the borrower's pockets, so to speak, all the same.
Mrs. Austen grew pale. Edith was fortunately not present, and therefore could not be affected by this report ”