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The settlements for Margaret’s dowry were signed on the ninth of July, in the Colonel’s library at Delaford.

It had been a matter of some delicacy. Mr. Tregarth had, years before, heard that the eighteen-year-old, beautiful Miss Dashwood had not much of a dowry to recommend her. He thought any man whom she would have would be the richest man in the world. He had carefully calculated their expenses and was determined to cut any corners necessary to provide his bride with whatever her heart desired.

Being in that frame of mind, it came as a shock to him upon receiving a letter, informing him that Professor Aylmer had called at Brook Street, in the first week of June, and had asked to see the Colonel alone; and he had said, after a good deal of throat-clearing and staring at the carpet, that he had a little matter he should like to lay before him. Mrs. Aylmer and himself had, as the Colonel was aware, only one child. That child was very happily settled. They had, however, in the course of the last few years, come to think of Margaret Dashwood as very nearly a second; and they were not people who did things by halves; and it was, in short, their wish that she should have four thousand pounds, on the day she was married, from themselves. He did not want any thanks. He did not want it to be talked about. He wanted only to be told that it would be accepted.

“It will be,” said the Colonel, and shook his hand.

So it was upon the ninth of July that it was found that Margaret Dashwood was in possession of five thousand pounds; of which one thousand had come to her from her father, and four from the Aylmers; and that the whole of it was settled upon herself, and her children after her, and was to be under her own management, and nobody else’s.

“But it is a fortune! The interest alone will provide two hundred pounds a year. Possibly more,” said Margaret. She said it in the tone of a person who has been told that she owns a country. “It is absurd. I cannot possibly — Simon, you must tell them. It is far too much.”

“I should have married you,” said Mr. Tregarth, with sudden fierceness, “with nothing.”

“I know that. It is the reason that I have said yes.”

“It is settled upon yourself, my dear,” said the Colonel gently, “and not upon Mr. Tregarth, in order that it should be perfectly plain that it is yours; that you should never, in any part of the world, or in any circumstances of your life, be obliged to ask any person for a shilling.” He paused. “I have seen what it is for a woman to depend for the whole of her life on another’s goodwill. I am most pleased that you shall never know it.”

“And it is on condition,” said Mrs. Aylmer, from the window-seat, with a severe expression, “that half of it is spent on seeing the world. I have no objection to Cornish tin; but I shall inquire.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Tregarth Senior, with feeling. “In Cornwall we should call that a lump. I never saw a girl so fortunate in her friends.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “You will forgive me. I forgot myself.”

It was upon the night before the wedding that the sisters sat up.

It was a custom that had been invented, a few days before, by Marianne, and it was a measure of Elinor’s affection that she, who had never in her life encouraged a custom, permitted herself to be led into it. They had assembled at ten o’clock, in the great blue bedroom at Delaford which had been allotted to the bride, with a tray of tea, a plate of cold chicken, a very large slice of seed cake, a single candle, and the understanding that nobody was to sleep. The house was full. There were Tregarths in the attics and Aylmers in the dressing-room; there was a Cornish aunt on the second floor who had been sick in the coach; and Cecilia and Mr. Wren, who had come down from town in a hired chaise that morning, were sound asleep in the yellow room, with a great many cushions. But in the blue room, the door was shut; and there was the peculiar, private hush of a place where three people have known each other from the cradle.

The wedding-gown hung upon the wardrobe door, in the moonlight. Margaret sat cross-legged in the middle of the four-poster, in her white night-gown, with her hair down her back, and a shawl of Mamma’s over her shoulders, and her toes tucked under her; and she looked, as Marianne observed, not in the least like a bride, but like a person of thirteen who had been told she might stay up.

“Something old,” said Marianne, ticking it off on her fingers, “something new, something borrowed, something blue. I have blue. It is a ribbon, and it is a very good one, and it is going to be sewn into the hem of your petticoat. The new is the gown. The borrowed —”

“Henry says that he has it in hand.”

“Henry is a great deal too ready with his hands. What is the old?”

“I have not got an old.”

“Well, you must have one. It is a fixed rule.” Marianne looked round for an answer, and found, upon the tray, a fork. “You shall have that. It is quite eighty years.”

“It is from Barton,” said Elinor. “It was Mrs. Jennings’s.”

“Then it is twice as good.”

They laughed. It was one of the small silly gentle laughs that come, at the end of a long day, to those who are tired, and fond, and a little afraid; and it was not until it had subsided that Marianne said, with her chin upon her knee, in a voice that was rather too casual:

“Do you remember when you hid from Fanny?”

“Oh, no —”

“You cannot possibly have forgotten it.”

“I have tried very hard.”

“Then I shall tell it, and Elinor shall correct me.”

It had been the second week of the November after their father died. It was the day on which the chaise had come up the drive at Norland, with a smoking pair of horses and a great many boxes; and it had been a raw, grey, cheerless day; and Fanny Dashwood, who was to be the mistress of the house, had come up the steps with a lap-dog in her arms and a small boy at her skirts, and had stood upon the threshold of the hall, and looked round it, up and down, at the panelling, the staircase, and the tall painted windows, precisely, as Elinor said afterwards, in the manner of a person being shown a property, which she was.

“I never saw a woman so pleased with a chimney-piece,” said Marianne.

“And you —” said Elinor, looking at her youngest sister.