MABEL'S PROGEESS,

BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."

BOOK III.

CHAPTER XIII. A SUDDEN CLOUD IN A
SUMMER SKY.

CLEMENT'S abrupt departure had excited very
little surprise at Bramley Manor. He was
accustomed to make similar journeys, and to make
them at equally short notice. His father, who
had his own reasons—with which the reader
has been made acquainted—for wishing to keep
Clement as much as possible in the society of
Miss O'Brien, grumbled a little at first, and
asked Stephens crossly why the deuce he
couldn't find some one else to send, instead of
bothering Mr. Clement about the matter. And
Stephens had answered bluntly, and with the
sort of democratic familiarity prevalent in
Hammerham, that there was no one who ought to
have been entrusted with the business excepting
himself and Mr. Clem, and that if he (Stephens)
had absented himself from the office for two
days just at that juncture, Mr. Clem couldn't
have done his work meantime; so it was better
as it had been managed. And then Mr.
Charlewood had said no more, and on the third day
Clement had returned and made his report,
which was favourable to the undertaking of the
contract. The preparations for Augusta's
wedding were going on rapidly. All day long a
succession of tradespeople, milliners, jewellers,
dressmakers, besieged the lodge gate of Bramley
Manor. Augusta's room was constantly strewn
with costly fabrics, and the fair owner of the
apartment seemed to live in the midst of a
billowy sea of silks and laces and cashmeres.
Mr. Charlewood's rich friends—and nearly all
Mr. Charlewood's friends were rich—vied with
each other in the costliness and magnificence of
the wedding presents, which poured in on all
hands. The friends in question, having assured
themselves that the young couple would have
ample means to purchase for themselves any
article of beauty or luxury that could reasonably
be desired, spared no expense in loading
them with rich gifts.

The Reverend Malachi Dawson had, of course,
presented his bride with several elegant — though
by no means vulgarly expensive — offerings.
And Mrs. Dawson, who had talked with a good
deal of importance and mystery of the " family
jewels " she intended to bestow on her future
daughter-in-law, brought out one day a great
leathern casket containing a necklace, earrings,
and bracelets of opals and pearls—the latter a
good deal discoloured—and made them over to
Augusta with considerable pomp.

"I would not have them re-set on any
account," said Mrs. Dawson, "and I hope that
you will not do so either, Augusta. They were
worn by my grandmother on her wedding-day,
and had already been in her family for two or
three generations."

Augusta Charlewood knew quite as much as
Mrs. Dawson about the value of jewellery; and
she perceived very plainly that the stones were
poor and inferior, and that their setting was
old fashioned and unmitigatedly ugly, and she
inly resolved that her own bridal attire should
never be disfigured by so mean a parure. But
in showing her trousseau to such female friends
as were privileged to behold its glories,
Augusta, after dazzling them with the glittering
contents of velvet cases, enclosing the choicest
workmanship of London and Parisian jewellers,
would open a drawer, and taking out the
battered old leathern casket, would say loftily,
"But, after all, this is the gift that is of more
value to me than all the rest. It was given to
me by dear Mrs. Dawson, and belonged to
Malachi's great-grandmother. As a memorial
of his ancestors, it is priceless; because, of
course, you know" — pointing to the brilliant
gems around her—"these things can be
purchased at any time; but no money can buy an
heirloom. I look upon this casket with quite a
superstitious reverence."

And, indeed, so great was Augusta's reverence
for Mrs. Dawson' s yellow old pearls, that
she never could be induced so far to desecrate
the heirloom as to wear it.

Mr. Charlewood gave his daughter a very
handsome marriage portion, and held out the
prospect of her inheriting a still larger sum at
his death. The Reverend Malachi Dawson,
although not in the immediate possession of a
large fortune, was the undoubted heir to
considerable entailed property in Ireland; the present
holder of which was an aged childless widower.
There was, too, the income of the very comfortable
living near Eastfield; so that, altogether,
Augusta was making by no means a bad match
in a money point of view; and as to family! All