Mother Forty, and what a pity that she had not lived long enough to know Carrie Wilson-who, of course, would be a very different creature from Carrie Dilworth; but he always came back to the new clothes in the top bureau-drawer, and the duty of the day that was beginning to dawn. Then, he heard Pat.'s voice among the cattle at the barn; then, a stirring in the kitchen under him, and presently the noise of the coffee-mill-and still it was not light enough to shave! More slowly than ever before the sun rose; his toilet, which usually lasted five minutes, took half an hour; he combed his hair in three different ways, none of which was successful; and finally went down to breakfast, feeling more awkward and uncom fortable than ever before in his life.

Woodbury shook hands with him and complimented him on his appearance, after which he felt more composed. The preparations for the ride to Ptolemy, nevertheless, impressed him with a certain solemnity, as if he were a culprit awaiting execution or a corpse awaiting burial. A feeling of helplessness came over him: the occasion seemed to have been brought about, not so much by his own will as by an omnipotent fate which had taken him at his word. Presently Pat. came up grinning, dressed in his Sunday suit, and announced: "The hosses is ready, Misther Bute, and it'll be time we're off." After the ceremony Pat. was to drive the happy pair to Tiberius, where they proposed spending a honeymoon of two days with the bride's old aunt. He wore a bright blue coat with brass buttons, and Melinda had insisted on pinning a piece of white ribbon on the left lappel, "Kase," as she remarked, "down Souf ole Missus always had 'um so.

Woodbury mounted his horse and rode off, in advance, through the soft September morning. At the parsonage he found every thing in readiness. Mrs. Waldo, sparkling with satisfaction, rustled about in a dark-green silk (turned, and with the spots carefully erased by camphene), vibrating incessantly between the little parlor where the ceremony was to take place, and the bedroom up-stairs, where the bride was

being arrayed under the direction of Hannah Thurston. Nothing, as she candidly confessed, enlisted her sympathies so completely as a wedding, and it was the great inconvenience of a small congregation that her husband had so few occasions to officiate.

"Promise me, Mr. Woodbury," she said, as she finally paused in her movements, from the impossibility of finding any thing else to do, " that you will be married by nobody but Mr. Waldo."

"I can safely promise that," he answered: "but ask me to fix the time when it shall take place."

pray don't

"If it depended on me, I would say to-morrow. Ah, there is Bute! How nicely he looks!" With these words she went to the door and admitted him.

Bute's illness had bleached the tan and subdued the defiant ruddiness of his skin. In black broadcloth and the white silk gloves (white kids, of the proper number, were not to be found in Ptolemy) into which he had been unwillingly persuaded to force his large hands, an air of semi-refinement overspread the strong masculine expression of his face and body. His hair, thinned by fever and closely cut, revealed the shape of his well-balanced head, and the tender blue gleam in his honest eyes made them positively beautiful. Mrs. Waldo expressed her approval of his appearance, without the least

reserve.

Soon afterwards, a rustling was heard on the stairs; the door opened, and Miss Carrie Dilworth entered the parlor with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes, followed by Hannah Thurston, in the white muslin dress and pearl-colored ribbons which Woodbury so well remembered. The bride was really charming in her gray, silvery silk, and a light-green wreath crowning her rippled hair. Orange-blossoms were not to be had in Ptolemy, and there were no white garden-flowers in bloom except larkspurs, which of course were not to be thought of. Hannah Thurston, therefore, persuaded her to content herself with a wreath of the myrtle-leaved box, as the

nearest approach to the conventional bridal diadem, and the effect was simple and becoming.

Each of the parties was agreeably surprised at the other's appearance. Bute, not a little embarrassed as to how he should act, took Miss Dilworth's hand, and held it in his own, deliberating whether or not it was expected that he should kiss her then and there. Miss Dilworth, finding that he did not let it go, boldly answered the pressure and clung to him with a natural and touching air of dependence and reliance. Nothing could have been more charming than the appearance of the two, as they stood together in the centre of the little room, he all man, she all woman, in the most sacred moment of life. They expressed the sweetest relation of the sexes, he yielding in his tenderness, she confiding in her trust. No declaration of mutual rights, no suspicious measurement of the words of the compact, no comparison of powers granted with powers received, but a blind, unthinking, blissful, reciprocal self-bestowal. This expression in their attitude and their faces did not escape Hannah Thurston's eye. It forced upon her mind doubts which she would willingly have avoided, but which she was only strong enough to postpone.

Pat. had already slipped into the room, and stood awkwardly in a corner, holding his hat in both hands. The only other stranger present was Miss Sophia Stevenson, who had kindly assisted the bride in the preparation of her wardrobe, and who differed from her sister spinster, Miss Ruhaney Goodwin, in the fact that she was always more ready to smile than sigh. All being assembled, Mr. Waldo came forward and performed the simple but impressive ceremony, following it with an earnest prayer. Miss Carrie lifted up her head and pronounced the "I will" with courage, but during the prayer she bent it again so that it partly rested against Bute's shoulder. When the final "Amen!" was said, Bute very gently and solemnly kissed his wife, and both were then heartily congratulated by the clergyman, who succeeded in closing his lips sufficiently to achieve the salute which an old friend might take without

blame. Then there were hearty greetings all round: the certificate of marriage was signed and given to the wife for safekeeping, as if its existence were more important to her than to the husband; and finally Mrs. Waldo prepared what the Hon. Zeno Harder would have called a "coe-lation." Woodbury had been thoughtful enough to send to the parsonage a bottle or two of the old Dennison Madeira, rightly judging that if Mrs. Babb had been alive, she would have desired it for the reason that "she" would have done the same thing. On this occasion all partook of the pernicious beverage except Hannah Thurston, and even she was surprised to find but a very mild condemnation in her feelings. The newly-wedded couple beamed with a mixture of relief and contentment; Carrie was delighted at hearing herself addressed as "Mrs. Wilson," and even Bute found the words "your wife," after the first ten minutes, not the least strange or embarrassing.

Presently, however, the wife slipped away to reappear in a pink gingham and a plaid shawl. The horses were ready at the door, and Pat. was grinning, whip in hand, as he stowed away a small carpet-bag, containing mingled male and female articles, under the seat. A few curious spectators waited on the plank side-walk, opposite, but Bute, having gone through the grand ordeal, now felt courage to face the world. As they took their seats, and Pat. gave a preliminary flourish of his whip, Mrs Waldo produced an ancient slipper of her own, ready to hurl it at the right moment. The horses started; the slipper flew, whizzed between their heads and dropped into the bottom of the carriage.

"Don't look back!" she cried; but there was no danger of that. The road must have been very rough, for Bute was obliged to put his arm around his wife's waist, and the dust must have been very dense, for she had raised her handkerchief to her eyes.

"Will you take care of me to-day ?" said Woodbury to the Waldos. "I shall not go back to Lakeside until evening."

CHAPTER XXVIL

DESCRIBING CERTAIS TROUBLES OF MR. WOODBURY.

Wees they retamed to Mrs. Waldo's panor, the conversstion naturally ran apon the ceremony which had just been solemnized and the two chief actors in it. There was but one judgment in regard to Bate, and his wife, also, had gained steadily in the good opinion of all ever since her betrothal beside the sick-bed.

44

"I had scarcely noticed her at all, before it happened,” said Woodbury, for she impressed me as a shallow, ridiculous, little creature-one of those unimportant persons who seem to have no other use than to fill up the cracks of society. But one little spark of affection gives light and color to the most insipid character. Who could have suspected the courage and earnestness of purpose which took her to Lakeside, when the fever had possession of the house? Since then I have heartily respected her. I have almost come to the conclusion that no amount of triumphant intellect is worth so much reverence as we spontaneously pay to any simple and genuine emotion, common to all human beings."

"I am glad to hear you say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Waldo. "Because then you will never fail in a proper respect to our sex. Hannah, do you remember, when you lent me Longfellow's Poems, how much I liked that line about affection?' I don't often quote, Mr. Woodbury, because I'm never sure of getting it exactly right; but it's this:

"What I esteem in woman

Is her affection, not her intellect,'

"And I believe all men of sense do."