Are You My Wife?, Chapter I [pp. 596-614]

A rc You My WVife?
ARE YOU MY WAVIFE?
BY TlHE AUTHOR OF "tA SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR, " NUMBER THIRTEEN, " PIUS VI.," EAC.
CHAPTER I.
A FEW PAGES FROM CLIDE DE,WINTON'S NOTE-BOOK.
IT was not the reception I ought
to have had; but that was my own
fault. The old house was not in
the habit of giving such a cold welcome to the eldest son who brought
home his young bride. On the
contrary, fireworks and bonfires,
and bells ringing, and flags flying,
and universal rejoicing both inside
and outside the house, -ad been
the traditionary mode of proceeding, on such occasions, since the
Conquest, when it first owned a
master of the name of De Winton.
My earliest recollections of a distinct kind are of my father bringing, home my step-mother to the old
place, and of my peeping out fromi
my nursery-window, and vaguely
connecting the strange lady, who
came in the midst of us heralded
by such noise and splendor, with
the story of the Queen of Sheba that
my nurse read to me very often on
Sundays out of a pictured storybook. This infantine delusion had
long vanished before I quite lost
the sense of childish bewilderment
that accompanied the occasion. I
was an odd child, I suppose; oldfashioned, but not at all precocious; and the dreamy impressions
of childhood held their grasp on
me longer than usual, probably
from my having no children to
play with and keep me from dwelling so long and so exclusively on
the fancies of my own hazy little
mind. I can recall vividly even
now how I hated all the noise and
fuss that followed the wvedding;
how I shrank from being dressed
in my scarlet cashmere frock, and
being sent for to the drawing-room,
and introduced to strangers, by my
stiff, stately step-mother, as " imy
son, Master Clide de WAVinton."
There seemed no end to the strangers that came trooping in to shake
hands with my father and to be
introduced to his wife. And then
the dinners that were given, and
the noise of music afterwards, that
used. to wake me up in the nursery,
and make me dream such noisy,
confused dreams when I fell asleep
again! How I detested it all!
And when I expressed something
of this to my nurse, and wondered
why the house, that used to be so
quiet when we had it to ourselves,
had become so full of noise and
strange people from the moment my
new mamivma came home, she found
no better comfort than to tell me
that that was always the way after
a wedding, and that whlen I was
grown up and married myself I
should make just as much fuss, and
a great deal more, because I should
be younger, and my wife too. It
may sound absurd, like so many
other reminiscences of childhood
that were once bitterly real to all
of us; but this horoscopic view of
life poisoned many an hour of those
nursery-days to me. The fact that
the dreaded ordeal was yet distant
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