It had been Nelly’s intention, with the vanity of a true woman, to postpone the wedding a month longer, and then to have it on such a scale as would excite the admiration and envy of all her companions; but Mr. Curtis was too shrewd for this.  He durst not put this rapid love to the test of waiting; and he so worked upon his daughter’s fears, that she consented to a more hasty union.  Mr. Brooke, too, showed some aversion to any public demonstration.  Perhaps he was conscious that his friends would think he was doing a foolish thing, and he was therefore desirous of having it over before they had time to remonstrate.  So, on a fine bright Sunday, early in September, the drowsy congregation, who were dozing away the afternoon-service, were aroused by the publication of the banns of marriage between Henry Brooke and Nelly Curtis.  It occasioned great whispering and tittering.  But no one suspected that the wedding was near at hand; and there were very few lingerers after the service was over, when Kelly came in at the side-door with her father, was joined by Mr. Brooke, and actually married then and there.

The Blount brothers never went to church, but they almost always came into the village of a Sunday afternoon, and on this memorable day they were there as usual, but not together.  John was earnestly discussing a new breed of cattle with a neighboring farmer, wholly oblivious of the false Nelly.  James was standing with a group of young men on the village-green, when Isaac Welles, the whilom blackberry-boy, rushed up, breathless, to say that he had been detained in the church and had actually seen Nelly and Mr. Brooke married.

In the first eager questions that followed this announcement, no one noticed James, until they were astonished to see him fall heavily to the ground.  He had fainted.  They had not mentioned the publication of the banns to him, and he was wholly unprepared for this utter annihilation of all his hopes.  Welles sprang to his side, and they raised him quickly.  He was a strong man, and before they could bring any restoratives he had recovered.

“It is nothing,” he said, with a sickly smile.  “I think it must have been a sunstroke.  It is confoundedly hot.”

This lame explanation was accepted, and James refused to go into any of the neighbors’ houses, though he consented to seat himself, for a few moments, on a rustic bench in the shade of the trees.

Half an hour later, John, having finished his chat, strolled to the green and approached the group.  He looked surprised when he caught sight of his brother, who of late had so carefully avoided him.  His astonishment increased when James rose, and, advancing a step, said,—­

“John, Nelly Curtis is married to that Brooke!”

An angry flush rose to John’s brow, and his black eyes flashed ominously, as he answered, in a hoarse, low voice,—­

“So much the better, for now she will never be your wife.”