KISS AND TRY.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 885, 26 April 1877, Page 3

KISS AND TRY.

{From Lendon Society.) ‘ 1 won’t marry for money, and I won’t be married for money, and I won’t marry at all; and when I do, I’ll please myself—so there ! You arc so stupid, Aunt Jane ;’ and the wilful little beauty stamped her foot, contradicting herself with a wrathful energy that would have done credit to an accomplished actress. ‘ My dear —’ ‘Don’t “my dear” me! I’m not your dear, I can be dear to plenty of people if I choose.’ ‘ My dear, really you are so impetuous, you’ll never be married.’ ‘ There it is again, that hateful topic. Can’t you understand I don’t wan’t to? Why should 1 ? I’ve got plenty of money ; I’ve got a carriage, and two such pets of ponies, and a hunter, and a house in the country: what more do I want ? I wish you would all let me alone. There’s papa talking sorrowfully, silly old darling, about his declining years, and only me, and me not married ; and if you are my aunt it’s no reason you should worry me night and day. I won’t have your lawyer i f he’s as rich as Creesus - how much has he given you to plead his cause, eh ?’ ‘ You need not insult me, at all events. I counsel you for your own good, Miss Delaselle. Mr Marshe is a most eligible person, most eligible. His father is in the front rank of his profession, and immensely rich ; your father approves of his suit. There is a possibility of the dormant peerage being revived in the favour of that family: Mr Marshe senior has rendered great services in high quarters. ’ ‘Thank you fo” your genealogical particulars. Now idease tell me all about; ' hptain Williams, and Theophilus Bishop, who will rise in the Church, and Sir Cornelius Wilkes, and Squire Thompso •, and Mr Burnaby, and Licu'enant Vane, and Lord Pauline, &c ‘ Really, you may well pause: the llirtations you carry on are beyond all belief. There were a dozen soldiers in the house yesterday. ’ ‘ fi nd there’ll be two dozen to night, and I shall have at least a hundred valentines tomorrow morning. Everybody likes me ; of coiuse they do. All the men know T don’t try to trap them into marrying me, like the other girls. Ah, there’s a ring ; sure to be somebody to see me.’ ‘Shameful!’ groaned Aunt Jane, composing herself to her work. Marie glanced at the mirror over the mantelpiece, trailed, and adjusted a stray curl • ‘ Aunt, don’t you think I look awfully nice this evening ?’ ‘ Charming !’ said a gentleman’s voice, as the door was thrown open, and Mr Marshe was announced. ‘ Pardon me, that dress is perfection.’ ‘ S'r, I do not like personal remarks ; they are extremely rude. However, your profession, I suppose, brings you into contact with vulgar people. ’ ‘Marie !’ reproachfully from Aunt Jane. ‘ Miss Delaselle is privileged,’ said Marshe, a dapper young man, not bad-looking, but obviously conceited. Marie sid all little men were vain ; and as for lawyers they seemed to consider it the duty of heiresses to marry them. ‘ What devorce case are you engaged in row, sir ?’ she asked. ‘ We do not undertake that class of work,’ said Marshe, loftily. ‘ Captain Williams—o, and Lord Pauline too !’ lam delighted to sec you. We have been so dull this evening, have we not, aunt Jane ?’ These new-comers hardly acknowledge! the lawyer, who on his part surveyed them with intense scorn. ‘Neither of them has a hundred pounds’ cash,’ thought he to himself, ‘ and yet such airs.’ Marie, however, was much more pleasant in her manner to them, which galled him extremely, yet he could not tear himself away; and after twenty times resolving never to speak to her again, he had actually opened a tacit understanding with Mr Delaselle. She was, indeed, one of those girls of whom it may be jus'ly said that there is no living with them nor without them. He turned to pay court to aunt Jane, when the Ecv Theophilus Bishop arrived. H e was acting for the present as a curate in town, till a valuable living, in the gift of a relative, should become vacant by the decease of the aged incumbent. ‘ You cruel man !’ said Marie ; ‘ I heard of your sermon ; so, if a poor lady is deserted by her husband and gets a divorce, she is not to marry again ?’ ‘ We are opposed to such unions on the highest grounds, my dear Miss Delaselle. If we had only known that a divorcee was one of the contracting parties, we should have more certainly refused permission to use the sacred edifice. ‘ Well, it’s very hard. Don’t you think so, Mrs Marshe ?’ ‘To refuse would be illegal,’ said the lawyer, glad of a chance of putting down one of his rivals, ‘ quite illegal, I feel sure, to say nothing of the bad taste.’ ‘By the ecclesiastical law—’ began the curate, firing up in a moment, ‘ It’s a confounded shame,’ broke in Capt. Williams, ‘ The ladies arc deserving of every consideration,’ said Lord Pauline, an aged beau, but well preserved. ‘ You may be sure the lady was the injured party.’ ‘ Ecclesiastical law —’ repeated the curate. ‘Suppose it was me,’ said Marie ; ‘suppose 1 had a brute of a husband —of course I never mean to have one, that s understood. ’ ‘ The premises arc very lucid, said the lawyer sarcastically. ‘ And—and I was divorced. ‘ Mustn’t 1— have—well —’ . ‘You of course would be an exception, said the curate ; but as a rule such marriages are even more sinful than those contracted simply with a view to filthy lucre.’ This was a cut for Marshe. - I hate women who marry for money,’ said Marie ; ‘ there’s nothing so despicable. ’ ‘Nothing so despicable,’ echoed Captain Williams and Lord Pauline, neither of whom had a ‘dollar.’ ‘Except a man’s marrying a lady for her money,’ added the curate, who was well provided for as far ‘as the good tilings of this world went.’ ‘There should be a certain equality of position and of pecuniary means in order to insure mutual respect. ’ ‘ Mutual respect be hanged! ’ muttered Captain Williams, in his beard. ‘ What did 1 hear ?’ said Urn curate ; the language of the barrack room —’