VILLAGE BELLES. CHAPTER I. BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS. THE youngest of the two Miss Parkinsons, of Park Place, amazingly disobliged her family by marrying the Reverend Henry Wellford, vicar of Summerfield, who had nothing on earth but good looks, good qualities, and four hundred and fifty pounds a year to recommend him. Alas! how did her father storm and rage, how did her mother fume and fret, how did aunt Diana congratulate herself that she had settled her thirty thousand pounds on Hannah her eldest niece, how did the aforesaid Hannah sneer and observe she had thought how it would end," and how did the good folks of Stoke Barton stare and sigh and shake their heads, and bless heaven that no poor VOL. I. 66 B |