CHAPTER XXIX.

“ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.”

WHEN the festivities at Holmcastle were over--they lasted three days, and will long be remembered in the lovely Dale of the Arrow--Wilfred and Evelyn, as had been previously arranged, went on with the Duchess of Ribblesdale and her son, in order to be present at the still grander fêtes which were to celebrate the coming of age of the latter.

The previous day, there was a grand picnic up the Dale to the Old Maen of Stanwick. It was on that occasion that the young Duke, following Evelyn, who had expressed a wish once more to stand on the peak of Stanwick Edge, put into practice the resolution he had formed erewhile in the railway carriage on his way from Hampton Court to London, viz., to make an offer of marriage to the beautiful sister of his friend. It boots not to tell the precise words in which the young man couched his proposal, but it is needful to record that the young lady’s answer was monosyllabic, and in the affirmative. And then, after a few minutes, during which her lover had held her in his arms, the young girl murmured, “But oh! what will the Duchess think of me?”

“She would have been broken-hearted if your answer had been any other than what it was,” said the young man, “and I shall take you to her the moment we get home, for I know that the dearest wish of her heart is to call you ‘daughter.’”

“Thank God,” cried the Duchess, as she affectionately embraced the blushing girl; “and I may now confess that, from the first moment I saw you, I destined you for my son. It is not often that a match-making old mother is so entirely happy as I am at this moment.”

Love-making is well known to be more catching (and often far more dangerous) than measles or scarlet-fever, and that perhaps is the reason why, upon the self-same afternoon, Wilfred, not to be behind his friend, proposed to and was accepted by pretty Mary Elthorne, whom he had known and loved from childhood upwards, and who had all the qualifications of person and disposition which would render the most fastidious of men happy.

By the Duchess’s special desire, the Rector of Holmcastle, with his wife, now happily restored to health, and his affianced daughter, accompanied the rest of the party to Ribblesdale.

The secret of the Duke’s engagement had been well kept; but when, on the evening of the day of his coming of age, Evelyn Manwaring entered the state ballroom of Ribblesdale Castle between the Duchess and her son, and in a perfect blaze of diamonds, then the County came to know that the wide lands and ancient Castle of Ribblesdale would have a worthy mistress as well as a noble master.

The Duchess (_Dowager_, as she would thenceforward be rightly called) had that morning made over to her daughter-in-law elect the whole of the superb Ribblesdale Diamonds, and henceforward she appeared wearing the great Scarswicke Emerald alone.

Arrangements were made to hasten on both marriages, and in little more than a month the newspapers announced that the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, assisted by the Reverend Charles Elthorne, Rector of Holmcastle, and the Reverend Peter Butterthwaite, Vicar of Ribblesdale-cum-Wappenshaw, had united both couples in Ribblesdale Church in the bonds of Holy Matrimony. His Grace of York, whose taste for aristocratic celebrations of a matrimonial kind is well known, would have been glad to officiate himself--but he was not asked.

Wilfred, who, as Mr. Elthorne had predicted, was speedily appointed to the command of the North Lancashire Volunteers, at once took up his abode at Holmcastle, which, assisted by his wife’s cultivated taste, he is gradually beautifying--for, thanks to the coal discovered under his farms near Ormskirk, he is now a rich man. There is no more popular a couple in all Lancashire than Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Manwaring.

The good Duchess Dowager, resisting all the entreaties of her son and daughter to take up her abode with them at Ribblesdale, now, thanks to her wise administration during her son’s minority, happily freed from all encumbrances, remains at Hampton Court; but the reigning Duchess has resigned her apartments in that ancient Palace, having, as mistress of Ribblesdale, no longer any need to occupy them.

During a flying visit to Town, in endeavouring to cross Regent Street, Wilfred was cannoned against by another foot-passenger, in whom he was glad to recognise his kind friend, Mr. Caleb Lomax, of San Francisco, who was then staying at the Northumberland Hotel with his wife and family. These worthy people accepted Wilfred’s cordial invitation that they should visit him in the North; and when the visit to Holmcastle came to an end, they went on to visit the Duke and Duchess of Ribblesdale. It was the latter distinguished lady who presented Mrs. Caleb Lomax, Miss Lomax, Miss Olivia and Miss Aurelia Lomax, of the United States, to Her Most Gracious Majesty--a fact which you may be sure was duly recorded, with full particulars of the very handsome and becoming dresses they wore upon the occasion, in the San Francisco Dailies.

In a cheerful room, in a snug almshouse overlooking the busy Mersey, an aged woman may be seen, thankfully passing a serene and peaceful old age, and awaiting her summons to another and less weary world. This is no other than old Biddy Maguire, and she owes her comfortable retreat to the influence of the young Squire of Holmcastle, who never forgot the blessing she had erewhile invoked upon his head in his hour of trial and disgrace, and who feels that his present prosperity may be in some degree owing to the prayers she offered up in his behalf.

Marcus Ward & Co., Royal Ulster Works, Belfast.

=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=

Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Inconsistent hyphens left as printed.