By the Sentimental Member Of all the romantic towns in Wessex,Wintoncester is probably the most convenient for meditative people to live in;since there you have a cathedral with a nave so long that it affords space in which to walk and summon your remoter moods without continually turning on your heel,or seeming to do more than take an afternoon stroll under cover from the rain or sun.In an uninterrupted course of nearly three hundred steps eastward,and again nearly three hundred steps westward amid those magnificent tombs,you can,for instance,compare in the most leisurely way the dry dustiness which ultimately pervades the persons of kings and bishops with the damper dustiness that is usually the final shape of commoners,curates,and others who take their last rest out of doors.Then,if you are in love,you can,by sauntering in the chapels and behind the episcopal chantries with the bright-eyed one,so steep and mellow your ecstasy in the solemnities around,that it will assume a rarer and finer tincture,even more grateful to the understanding,if not to the senses,than that form of the emotion which arises from such companionship in spots where all is life,and growth,and fecundity.
It was in this solemn place,whither they had withdrawn from the sight of relatives on one cold day in March,that Sir Ashley Mottisfont asked in marriage,as his second wife,Philippa,the gentle daughter of plain Squire Okehall.Her life had been an obscure one thus far;while Sir Ashley,though not a rich man,had a certain distinction about him;so that everybody thought what a convenient,elevating,and,in a word,blessed match it would be for such a supernumerary as she.Nobody thought so more than the amiable girl herself.She had been smitten with such affection for him that,when she walked the cathedral aisles at his side on the before-mentioned day,she did not know that her feet touched hard pavement;it seemed to her rather that she was floating in space.
Philippa was an ecstatic,heart-thumping maiden,and could not understand how she had deserved to have sent to her such an illustrious lover,such a travelled personage,such a handsome man.
When he put the question,it was in no clumsy language,such as the ordinary bucolic county landlords were wont to use on like quivering occasions,but as elegantly as if he had been taught it in Enfield's Speaker.Yet he hesitated a little--for he had something to add.
'My pretty Philippa,'he said (she was not very pretty by the way),'I have,you must know,a little girl dependent upon me:a little waif I found one day in a patch of wild oats [such was this worthy baronet's humour]when I was riding home:a little nameless creature,whom I wish to take care of till she is old enough to take care of herself;and to educate in a plain way.She is only fifteen months old,and is at present in the hands of a kind villager's wife in my parish.Will you object to give some attention to the little thing in her helplessness?'
It need hardly be said that our innocent young lady,loving him so deeply and joyfully as she did,replied that she would do all she could for the nameless child;and,shortly afterwards,the pair were married in the same cathedral that had echoed the whispers of his declaration,the officiating minister being the Bishop himself;a venerable and experienced man,so well accomplished in uniting people who had a mind for that sort of experiment,that the couple,with some sense of surprise,found themselves one while they were still vaguely gazing at each other as two independent beings.
After this operation they went home to Deansleigh Park,and made a beginning of living happily ever after.Lady Mottisfont,true to her promise,was always running down to the village during the following weeks to see the baby whom her husband had so mysteriously lighted on during his ride home--concerning which interesting discovery she had her own opinion;but being so extremely amiable and affectionate that she could have loved stocks and stones if there had been no living creatures to love,she uttered none of her thoughts.The little thing,who had been christened Dorothy,took to Lady Mottisfont as if the baronet's young wife had been her mother;and at length Philippa grew so fond of the child that she ventured to ask her husband if she might have Dorothy in her own home,and bring her up carefully,just as if she were her own.To this he answered that,though remarks might be made thereon,he had no objection;a fact which was obvious,Sir Ashley seeming rather pleased than otherwise with the proposal.
After this they lived quietly and uneventfully for two or three years at Sir Ashley Mottisfont's residence in that part of England,with as near an approach to bliss as the climate of this country allows.The child had been a godsend to Philippa,for there seemed no great probability of her having one of her own:and she wisely regarded the possession of Dorothy as a special kindness of Providence,and did not worry her mind at all as to Dorothy's possible origin.Being a tender and impulsive creature,she loved her husband without criticism,exhaustively and religiously,and the child not much otherwise.She watched the little foundling as if she had been her own by nature,and Dorothy became a great solace to her when her husband was absent on pleasure or business;and when he came home he looked pleased to see how the two had won each other's hearts.Sir Ashley would kiss his wife,and his wife would kiss little Dorothy,and little Dorothy would kiss Sir Ashley,and after this triangular burst of affection Lady Mottisfont would say,'Dear me--I forget she is not mine!'
'What does it matter?'her husband would reply.'Providence is fore-knowing.He has sent us this one because he is not intending to send us one by any other channel.'
