sweet, comes into the fullness of her womanhood’s estate of love.  Her joy overflows on all; currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal.  So her largess is perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, beseeching.  In Draxy’s large nature,—­her pure, steadfast, loving soul, quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and absolutely healthful body,—­this new life of love and passion wrought a change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes.  Men and women upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they knew not how.  A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew up towards her in the hearts of the people.  A certain touch of sadness, of misgiving, mingled with it.

“I’m afraid she ain’t long for this world; she’s got such a look o’ heaven in her face,” was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder’s approaching marriage was talked of.  But old Ike was farther sighted, in his simplicity, than the rest. “’Tain’t that,” he said, “that woman’s got in her face.  It’s the kind o’ heaven that God sends down to stay’n this world, to help make us fit for the next.  Shouldn’t wonder ef she outlived th’ Elder a long day,” and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of his hand.

The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only mountain regions know.  The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue.  The air was soft as the air of June.  Draxy’s young friends had decorated the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod.  Two children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed.

When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father’s arm, wearing the same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews.  The people had hoped for something more.  Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, “White, of course,” but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask more, and there had even been those in the parish who “reckoned” that she wouldn’t “be satisfied with anythin’ less than white satin.”  Her head was bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same massive knot as usual.  Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her bosom.  As she entered the pew and sat down by