5. CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE BRIDEGROOM.
A STATELY array of silver candelabra, placed on
the mantel, and containing tall formal wax candles,
threw a glaring light around the antiquated parlor,
with its massive mirrors, its Turkish carpeting, its
wainscoted walls, adorned with paintings, its old
fashioned sofa, and high backed mahogany chairs.
A young man of some twenty-three years, attired
in the uniform of an officer in the British dragoons,
lay extended on the sofa in an attitude of the most
elegant disorder; with his legs enveloped in Hessian
boots, shining with spurs and spattered with
mud, very easily crossed one over the other; his
head with its powdered locks resting upon one arm,
while with his face to the ceiling he seemed intently
engaged in examining the merits of his chapeau,
with its mass of feathers, which his other hand
held poised directly over his face. He was not an
unhandsome man, but there was an air of effeminacy
about his small, delicate features, and the jaunty
air of every position assumed by his slender and
well proportioned figure, that gave you an idea you
stood in the presence of the fashionable fop, the
man of the world of idlers, the “dawdler” at ladies'
elbows, the talker of small sayings, the coiner of
compliments, and smatterer of little pieces of all
kinds of knowledge, which combined together form
what the mass calls
a gentleman, always provided
the combination of so many rare qualities is well
dressed.
And Wellwood Tracy was no dull fellow either.
A few summers at Oxford had given him some
idea of the existence of Greek and Latin, and he
was sufficiently acquainted with them to know that
these words meant languages, not celebrated philosophers;
a winter in London, passed amid the
excitement of balls, routes, soirees, and the thousand
other assemblages of the gay world, had given
him some idea of life, and instilled into his mind
that fashionable code of morals, which places the
winning of a game at cards, and the destruction of
a woman's virtue, on a scale of perfect equality in
the list of innocent pleasures and venial sins; what
with all these acquirements, and a genteel way of
saying large oaths and dainty imprecations, Lieutenant
Wellwood Tracy was voted by the world in
general, and his messmates in particular, to be a
deuced clever fellow, a finished gentleman, in every
way worthy of succeeding to the Earldom of Wallingford,
in case the intermediate heirs should happen
to vacate this scene of trial and care.
The Lieutenant had just counted each feather in
his chapeau for the twelfth time, when the door
opened, and a servant informed him that his chamber
was ready for his use, where he might remove
from his person the dust, disorder and dishabille of
travel.
“Now for my bridal robes”—lisped the gallant
dragoon, as he tumbled from the sofa into an erect
position. “I wonder where that cursed valet of
mine is staying all the time? What detains the
village priest? Well—well (looking at his watch)
it's near the hour, and I've just time to dress. A
fellow can be married but once—it's best to submit
with a good grace, so here goes for the mysteries of
the toilet—and then she's handsome and rich, and
I may one day be Earl of Wallingford!”
Disappointment is the great misery of life—success
the great blessing. Which of the twain shal
be the lot of the gallant Lieutenant Wellwood Tracy
of His Majesty's dragoons?
