Eh? What?"
"That is the blessed truth, William. And yet it is the pride of my heart
to say that there never was such a bride or such a bridal in Sandal-Side
before. Still, I am tired, and I feel just as if I had had a trouble.
Come day, go day; at the long end, life is no better than the preacher
called it--_vanity_."
"To be sure it is not. We laugh at a wedding, we cry at a burying, a
christening brings us a feast. On the Sabbath we say our litany; and as
for the rest of the year, one day marrows another."
"Well, well, William Sandal! Maybe we will both feel better after a
night's sleep. To-morrow is untouched."
And the squire, looking into her pale, placid face, had not the heart to
speak out his thought, which was, "Nay, nay; we have mortgaged
to-morrow. Debt and fear, and the penalties of over-work and over-eating
and over-feeling, will be dogging us for their dues by dayshine."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
"There is a method in man's wickedness,
It grows up by degrees."
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"
After the wedding, there were some weeks of that peaceful monotony which
is the happiest vehicle for daily life,--weeks so uniform that Charlotte
remembered their events as little as she did their particular weather.
The only circumstance that cast any shadow over them related to Harry.
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