IV — IN THE ROOM OF THE BRIDE-ELECT

By Thomas Hardy

“Would it had been the man of our wish!”

Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she

In the wedding-dress — the wife to be -

“Then why were you so mollyish

As not to insist on him for me!”

The mother, amazed: “Why, dearest one,

Because you pleaded for this or none!”

“But Father and you should have stood out strong!

Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find

That you were right and that I was wrong;

This man is a dolt to the one declined...

Ah!— here he comes with his button-hole rose.

Good God — I must marry him I suppose!”