Yonelet, "surely Bertie hasn't shown the least sign
of being attracted in that quarter?"
"Oh, she's quite nice-looking in a way, and dresses well, and plays a
good game of tennis. She often comes across the park with messages from
the Bickelby mansion, and one of these days Bertie will rescue her from
the elk, which has become almost a habit with him, and Teresa will say
that Fate has consecrated them to one another. Bertie might not be
disposed to pay much attention to the consecrations of Fate, but he would
not dream of opposing his grandmother."
The vicar's wife spoke with the quiet authority of one who has intuitive
knowledge, and in her heart of hearts Mrs. Yonelet believed her.
Six months later the elk had to be destroyed. In a fit of exceptional
moroseness it had killed the Bickelbys' German governess. It was an
irony of its fate that it should achieve popularity in the last moments
of its career; at any rate, it established, the record of being the only
living thing that had permanently thwarted Teresa Thropplestance's plans.
Dora Yonelet broke off her engagement with an Indian civilian, and
married Bertie three months after his grandmother's death--Teresa did not
long survive the German governess fiasco. At Christmas time every year
young Mrs. Thropplestance hangs an extra large festoon of evergreens on
the elk horns that decorate the hall.
"It was a fearsome beast," she observes to Bertie, "but I always feel
that it was instrumental in bringing us together.
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