In all probability the
ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December.
Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She
would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife
about three months before she was of age.
I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been
sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little
disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss
Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and
contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day.
In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in
three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to
return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences
she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and
cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the
effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away
with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There
the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances
were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde
in one short week from the time when I had last seen her.
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