LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1958, 3 June 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE PEW-OPENES’S RING.

[From Hood’s “ Comic Annual.”

This story begins where most stories end. The marriage service, from ‘ Dearly beloved’ straight through to * amszsment,’ has been duly celebrated. Pretty Mi«s Mary Ann Brown-Jones has become the lawful wedded wife of good-looking Mr John Robinson. A vicar had blessed theii union; a curate, with his hair nicely parted down the middle, had smiled approval of it; the bride had blushed and trembled ; the bridegroom had exhibited considerable nervousness, but not of an unmanly sort, the circumstances being taken into account; the bridesmaids, eight in number, had acquitted themselves admirably, grouped and rosed themselves most picturesquely; old Brown Jones, as became a father losing his only daughter, had shed tears freely—they trickled fast down his cheeks, and dripped copiously cn to the many ridges of hia ample white waistcoat; moreover, he had blown hia nose so noi'ily as to be plainly audible even above the Wedding March appropriately boomed out by that other organ in the gallery of the church.

He was a timber merchant of credit and renown. He was, indeed, notoriously rich, and it was understood that his child would be one day possessed of a considerable fortune. The precise amount con'd not, of course, be stated; it was generally referred to as‘a pretty penny.’ The marriage was one of affection, with yet what may be called a prudential side to it. Miss Brown-Jones bad always thought Mr Robinsou * very nice,’ and Mr Robinson had for some time steadily admired Miss Brown-Jones. The ground was thus sufficiently cleared for love to spring up between them. Accordingly love had sprung up, striking tolerably deep root and outspreading strong branches, that like arms encircled and gathered the young couple together, gradually constraining them to be more and more dear to each other. Money was not exactly an object to Mr Robinson; still, the fact of Miss BrownJonea’s ‘ pretty penny ’ was certainly agreeable to htm. He might have loved her bad she bsen penniless ; assuredly her wealth did not in the slighte.t degree.diminish or obstruct his affection for her. Bat he had prospered in the city; he was the junior partner in a well-established firm of stockbrokers in Threadneedle street He had inherited a small patrimony, and his own merits and diligence had helped him to rise to his position of comfort snd comparative affluence. He felt that he could afford to marry, and that the time had arrived when it behoved him to quit bachelorhood and enter the honourable state of matrimony. He was thirty-five ; hia figure was less slim than it had been, and hia hair was thinning a little upon the crown of his head. So he chose Mary Ann Brown-Jones to ba the partner of his home —and hia life. She was not unwilling to be chosen. And now they were man and wife. The wedding breakfast was receiving the earnest attention of the jguesta; there was much jingling and clattering of silver, of glass, of china. There was a pleasant turmoil of conversation ; champagne corks popped, and the wine fizzed and foamed and gurgled. A brass band on the pavement without discoursed much discordant and streperous music.

‘I don't think I quite like your papa’s champagne,’ said Jack Kobinaon to his Mary Anne.

‘ Well, dear, we need’t get our champagne from papa’s wine merchant.’ It wat a simp’e speech, but it signified a good deal; adaptability, compliance, desire to consider her husband’s tastes, separation from parental prejudice, Ac. Mr Bobinson contemplated admiringly the comely, sweet, sympathetic face of his young bride, and emptied his glass without further murmuring. He had been making wry faces over the wine a moment before.

Suddenly the word of a waiter whispered huskily in Mr Robinson’s ear— *lf you please, sir, ther’s a party in the ’all as wants partlckly to see you, and won’t take no denial. A party by the name of Pontifex ’ ‘ Who ? What ? I can’t see any one at such a time as this. It’s absurd; it’s impossible !’ ‘So I said, sir; but, being a female, she’s ’ard to convince, as you can understand yourself, sir; and she says it’s urgent, and she must 'see you in private, immediately and without fail; them was her very words ; and she gave the name of Pontifex.’ ‘ I don’t know the name. I never heard of the name. I know nothing of her. nothing whatever. There must be some mistake,’

‘ A middle-aged party, sir, as wears black, sir, with crape on her bonnet, and looks like a widder woman, sir, and seems moat anxious, sir, and is that obstinate and persistent, as I never saw the like, air ; and nearly tore the tail of my coat off in her excitement, she did indeed, air, if you’ll believe me.’

‘ I tell you I can’t possibly see her J She must write or call again another day.’ ‘ Moat [respectable party, no doubt, sir, but that worrying in her ways !’ ‘Had you not better see her, John dearest ?’ interposed the bride ; for the whispered conversation with the waiter had necessarily reached her ears, and roused her curiosity; moreover, her sympathies were touched; ‘it would perhaps be a kindness to see the poor woman, whoever she may be or whatever she may want; and I think this is a day to* do kind things, of all days in the year.’ , After this amiable speech what could he do but follow the waiter from the room, and accord Mrs Pontifex an interview ?

He rose from the table aa quietly as he could, and trusted that hla brief absence might not be noticed. But, of course, a bridegroom could not quit a wedding breakfast without some commotion being excited. It was additionally awkward, too, because just at that moment some one was about to pmh back his chair, pull down his wristbands, and in the most eloquent terms he could command, propose the health and happiness of the newly-wedded. Was the bridegroom ill ? What was the matter ? Was it the heat of the room ? Did hejfeel faint? Was he overcome by his feelings ? Was it the champagne? These were the questions that the guests put to each other. 'Chen came a rumor that someone had insisted upon seeing him forthwith—had declined to leave the house without seeing him. A policeman? A sheriffs officer? Ho—much worse ; a woman ! Thereupon certain of the gentlemen interchanged significant winks ; and certain of the ladies, glancing compassionately at the bride, murmured, ‘Pqpr thing! ’ Mrs Eobinson did not look in the least unhappy, however ; she was employed upon the wing of a chicken, consuming it calmly, and not without appetite. Mr Robinson found himself in the presence o! a little old woman, clothed in shabby black. She smiled and smirked, bobbed, and curtseyed with much assiduity; Her face wore the withered, crinkled look of a winter apple; something about the shape and hue of her nose suggested an unripe mulberry ; her eyes were like black currants, they were so round and jetty. To the bird creation, indeed, the fruity character of her countenance generally might have proved embarrassing and disappointing. That was Mr Robinson’s first notion about the little old woman; then came a second thought, that he had seen her before somewhere, that her face was not unfamiliar to him. She rose from her seat ,as he entered the room. This was known usually as the study, and was situate in the rear of Mr Brown-Jones’a villa; but little study of any kind ever occurred in the apartment, and it was now much crowded with the hats, shawls, wrappers, sticks, and umbrellas of the wedding guests. ‘ Mrs Pontifex?’ began Mr Robinson. ‘Which right you are, Mr Robinson,’ said the little woman, cheerily; ‘ Pontifex being my name by marriage, though I wss born a Hmythers. But Pontifex, poor man ! has been dead and gone this many a long year ; a most respectable man, I do assure you, Mr Robinson ; in the veneering and cabinetmaking business. Which I always knew when he was coming round the corner by the smell of the French polish. And knowing my name, sir, I may say, sir, as you know my business.’ ‘ Really, Mrs Pontifex * Well, sir, its natural aa gents should be flurried on their wedding mornings, and there’s every excuse to be made for you, I’m sure, Mr Robinson ; with a sweet young bride as might have been cut out of a picturbook, and yourself in your blue body-coat, with your cheeks that red, and your hair that curly, as you looked the moral image of the bridegrooms in the walentines. And It’s many weddings I’ve seen, likewise

(funerals. But of course that’a neither here nor there. But to come to the pint—and I know I’m detaining on you from your blessed young wife, as you’d naturally wish to be with as such a moment, of all others, Mr .Robinson. I’ve come for my ring.’ ‘For your ring, Mrs Pontifex!' ‘ For my ring, Mr Robinson, as I lent yon to slip upon the finger of your sweet young bride, and get lawfully married thereunto ; and may yon never be set asunder therefrom—which is my fervid prayer. Amen I’ Then there fell upon Mr Robinson a Hood of light. Mrs Pontifex, with perfect truth, had spoken of the firmed state natural to bridegrooms upon their wedding mornings. Mr Robinson was now conscious that he had been very much flurried He had not been at all his own man, as people say. He had, indeed, been almost beside himself He had felt moat anxious, nervous, excited; the sense that he was to be a sort of spectacle, an object to be stared at by innumerable eyes, the butt, possibly, for a good deal of conventional ridicule, oppressed and afflicted him; and an idea that he had forgotten something haunted him painfully. He was of course well aware that the step in life he was taking was of a most important character had even something momentous about it; that htavy and gr;at responsibilities were before him. He was son.ething shy and self conscious, as Englishmen are apt to be, even when they are stockbrokers, placed in unusual positions. And then, without doubt, matrimony is an effervescing and intoxicating draught, with much fizzing and bubbling and bewilderment at the beginning, however there may be bitterness, and disappointment, aad disagreement at the dregs. He was in some degree flushed and ioebriated by the fact of his marriage, even before he had quaffed two glasses of old Brown-Jones’s champagne at tte wedding-breakfast. He remembered that he had remained in the vestry of the church some twenty minntes waiting the arrival of his bride. While in the vestry he had examined the weddingring ha had safely brought with him in a snug corner of hia white waistcoat. He had removed the silver paper in which the plain gold ring had been wrapped. He was quitting the vestry to take up his proper position in front of the altar, carrying the ring in his hand, when suddenly, it slipped through his agitated fingers, and fell with a tiny clash on to the bars of a grating in the paved aisle of the church 1 For a moment the poor little ring seemed to tremble, as though trying to balance itself in an nnsafe place, then it vanished! It had passed through the bars of the grating, and was lost in the vaults beneath the church !

(2b be continued .)