The laws of the colonies offered few obstacles to the
legality of their union; and when Ludlow appeared that morning, he firmly
believed that he beheld one, who, if he were not so already, was
inevitably soon to become his nephew. But the suffering of the
disappointed youth could not be counterfeited; and, prevented from
adhering to his first opinion, the perplexed Alderman seemed utterly at a
loss to conjecture what could have become of his niece. Wonder, rather
than pain, possessed him; and when he suffered his ample chin to repose on
the finger and thumb of one hand, it was with the air of a man that
revolved, in his mind, all the plausible points of some knotty question.
"Holes and corners!" he muttered, after a long silence; "the wilful minx
cannot be playing at hide-and-seek with her friends! The hussy had ever
too much of la famille de Barberie, and her high Norman blood about her,
as that silly old valet has it, to stoop to such childish trifling. Gone
she certainly is," he continued, looking, again, into the empty drawers
and closets, "and with her the valuables have disappeared. The guitar is
missing--the lute I sent across the ocean to purchase, an
excellently-toned Dutch lute, that cost every stiver of one hundred
guilders, is also wanting, and all the--hem--the recent accessions have
disappeared. And there, too, are my sister's jewels, that I persuaded her
to bring along, to guard against accidents while our backs are turned,
they are not to be seen.
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