CHAPTER IX.

HOW MINERS ARE CAUGHT.


Browning and Sedgwick had been in England two weeks. The question of the
marriage of Browning and Rose Jenvie had been discussed and decided upon.
Neither Hamlin nor Jenvie had interposed any objection to the marriage
except on the point of time. They asked, at first, that it be postponed
for six months, as Jenvie insisted that he wanted to be certain that Rose
had not been carried away by a mere impulse on seeing once more an old
friend who had long been absent. Hamlin agreed with him that the young
people must be sure not to make any mistake. Jack was impetuous, and
Rose, while making no pronounced opposition, quietly said that no tests
were necessary; that she and Jack had been separated for a long time and
knew their own minds. Sedgwick, when called in, refused to express an
opinion, it being a matter too sacred to permit of any outside
interference.

Finally a compromise was made, the time reduced one-half, and the date
fixed for the first of September, it being then nearly the first of June.
Jack had only agreed to the postponement on the condition that Sedgwick
should not desert him, but wait for the wedding. He consented, saying
carelessly that two or three months would not much matter to him, but the
truth was that the delay urged by the old men strengthened his suspicion
that all was not just right. "Those old chaps are too sweet by half," he