The dawn of the wedding-day has broken. Everything has been hurried
over as much as possible; with no unseemly haste--just in the most
ordinary, kindly way--however. But Lady Rylton's hand was at the
helm, and she guided her barque to a safe anchor with all speed. She
had kept Tita with her--under her eye, as it were--until the final
accomplishment should have taken place.

The wedding, she declared, should be from her house, from The Place,
seeing that the poor darling child was motherless! She made herself
all things to Tita in those days, although great anger stung her
within. She had been bitterly incensed by Maurice's avowal that Tita
had declined to live with her at The Place, but she had been
mightily pleased, for all that, in the thought that therefore The
Place would be left to her without a division of authority.

Sir Maurice has gone to Rickfort to interview "Uncle George" of
unpleasant fame. He had found him a rather strange-looking man, but
not so impossible as Tita had led him to imagine. He made no
objection of any sort to the marriage, and, indeed, through his cold
exterior Maurice could see that the merchant blood in him was
flattered at his niece's alliance with some of the oldest blood in
England.

He was quite reasonable, too, about his niece's fortune. So much was
to go to redeeming the more immediate debts on the property; for the
rest, Sir Maurice declared he would have nothing to do with it. The
money should be settled on his wife entirely. It was hers; he had no
claim to it. He would have something off his own property, a small