Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-29
CHAPTER LI.-AGA1N HYMEN.

Is there in all Europe more delightful old
world town than Berpe? There are grander
ministers, there are more princely mansions
bur there is no lovelier situation tnan that oc-
cupied nv the dear old city perched on a rock
round which the green Aar forms a loop. May
the great cancer Of modern Berne that lies in
the west never creep over and destroy the
beauty of the ancient town, as the same hor-
rible fungus growth is dishguring and killing
the charm out of nearly every ancient city on
the continent Even our common red brick
houses are better than the vulgar ash-grey.
Jerusalem artichoke colored edifices, all
staringly alike and equally uninteresting, that
are growing up in long line and regular square
in Imperial AK, in patrician Nurnberg In
episcopal Spires, everywhere treading
on and trampling out beauty. In
hundred years probably all the great
towns Of the Middle Ages will have
been transmitted from gold to lead, and be ut
terly unattractive. When we see ruin of a
church, an abbey, a castle, an old manor house,
even of a straw-thatched cottage, we are sad,
for we think what they were, beautiful in their
several ways and all having lost much by be-
coming ruins. But of these modern edifces
everything we can say is that we live in hope
that they may become ruins, for then only can
they conceivably touch the picturesque. In En-
gland our builders have grasped the truth tnat
there is beauty in a broken skyline, and IN al
formation of light and shadow in frontage;
but on the Continent, in France, Italy, Ger
many, Belgium, Switzerland, no archltect mas
risen above the idea of drawing parallel lines
and of making of every street an elementary
study in perspective.
Ona brilliant summer day, when the sun was
streaming down out of a perfectly blue sky
into the long main street of Berne, alive with
marketers three cabs drew up at the entrance
TO the Hotel of the Wild Man, near the Clock
tower, and from them stepped, in the first
place a young man in light grey trousers and
lavender gloves. and then young and pretty
lady wearing bridal veil wedding dress OF
silver grey. From the second carriage de-
sceuded three bridesmaids-no other than the
Iabarte girls-and from the third cab, Mrs.
Sidebot.om and Philip and Salome.
Captain Pennycomequick had been married
at the embassy to Janet Baynes, and If the
DAVIS weather gave a true presage OF the new
life entered on, that of the Captain and his
bride was likely to be a happy one. But there
were surer grounds on which to base forecast
of their hymeneal condition than the state of
the weather The Captain was an amiabls
man, whom nothing would rouse to opposition,
and Janet, as he and his mother had ascer-
tanned, was very comfortably off. She had or
would have about 500 a year. and 50Oper annum
in France where they intended to live would
allow of their enjoying themselves as much as
If they had double that sum in England. not
necessarily because things were cheaper in
France, but because popular opinion allowed
retrenchment in a thousand of those trides
which in England are the great outlets that let
money leak away.
There was to be no wedding tour; not because
Janet did not desire to escape with the Captain
from the rest of the party, but because the
I4abarte girls absolutely refused to be parted
with. They had suddenly woke to the discoV-
cry that Mrs. Sidebottom had hoodwinked
them, and carried them away out of sight and
hearing, while love-making was in progress;
ell had been torn from before their eyes and
they saw through all her lodges and subter-
fuges and we're IN combined mutiny and angry
protest. Henceforth nothing would sever them
from their aunt great opportunity had been