They rang first for Lord Hardy and Augusta Browne, who had intended to be married in October, but whose wedding was deferred until the second week in November, because, as Mrs. Rossiter-Browne expressed it, "Gusty's bridal trouses could not arrive in time from Paris." Everything pertaining to the young lady's wardrobe was ordered either from London or Paris, and could Mrs. Browne have done it she would have bought the Arch of Triumph, and, transporting it to Allington, would have set it up in front of her house and illuminated it for the occasion. She should never have another daughter marry an Irish lord, she said, and she meant "to make a splurge and astonish the natives," and she did.
She had a temporary ball-room built at one side of the house, and lighted it with a thousand wax candles. She had a brass band from Springfield and a string band from Worcester. She had a caterer from Boston, whom with her usual happy form of expression she called a "canterer." She had colored waiters in white gloves in such profusion that they stumbled over and against each other. She had an awning stretched from the front door to the gate, with yards and yards of carpeting under it.
"She had not been abroad for nothing, and she guessed she knew what was what," she said to Lord Hardy when he hinted that a plainer wedding would suit him quite as well, and that the money she was expending could be put to better purpose.
"I guess we can stand it, and still have a nice little sum for Gusty," she added, and patting her future son-in-law upon the back she bade him "keep cool and let her run the machine."
After that, Lord Hardy kept quiet, though he was never so near a fever as during the week which preceded his nuptials. For Augusta herself he did not care at all, as men are supposed to care for the girl they are about to marry. He did not dislike her, and he thought her rather pretty and lady-like, with a far better education than his own; but, strangely enough in these last days of his bachelorhood, he often found himself living over again those far-off times in Monte Carlo, when, as Cousin Sue from Bangor, he had laughed and talked and flirted with poor little Daisy, as he called her to himself, now that she was dead, and the grave had closed over all her faults and misdemeanors. She had been the cause of his ruin, and he had, at times, hated her for it, but she had been jolly company for all that, and he wondered what she would say if she could know that Mrs. Rossiter-Browne was to be his mother-in-law and Augusta Lady Hardy.