Second Period Eighth Narrative - Chapter I

Contributed by GABRIEL BETTEREDGE

I am the person (as you remember no doubt) who led the way in these
pages, and opened the story. I am also the person who is left behind, as
it were, to close the story up.

Let nobody suppose that I have any last words to say here concerning the
Indian Diamond. I hold that unlucky jewel in abhorrence--and I refer you
to other authority than mine, for such news of the Moonstone as you may,
at the present time, be expected to receive. My purpose, in this place,
is to state a fact in the history of the family, which has been passed
over by everybody, and which I won't allow to be disrespectfully
smothered up in that way. The fact to which I allude is--the marriage of
Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin Blake. This interesting event took place at
our house in Yorkshire, on Tuesday, October ninth, eighteen hundred and
forty-nine. I had a new suit of clothes on the occasion. And the married
couple went to spend the honeymoon in Scotland.

Family festivals having been rare enough at our house, since my poor
mistress's death, I own--on this occasion of the wedding--to having
(towards the latter part of the day) taken a drop too much on the
strength of it.

If you have ever done the same sort of thing yourself you will
understand and feel for me. If you have not, you will very likely say,
"Disgusting old man! why does he tell us this?" The reason why is now to
come.