After the wedding came lunch:  it was less formal than dinner, and nobody wanted to sit down before hot dishes and go through with the accompanying ceremonies.  For my part, I always did hate gregarious eating:  it is well enough for animals, in pasture or pen; but a thing that has so little that is graceful or dignified about it as this taking food, especially as the thing is done here in America, ought, in my opinion, to be a solitary act.  I never bring my quinine and iron to my friends and invite them to share it; why should I ask them to partake of my beef, mutton, and pork, with the accompanying mastication, the distortion of face, and the suppings and gulpings of fluid dishes that many respectable people indulge in?  No,—­let me, at least, eat alone.  But I did not do so to-day; for Josey, with the most unsentimental air of hunger, sat down at the table and ate two sandwiches, three pickled mushrooms, a piece of pie, and a glass of jelly, with a tumbler of ale besides.  Laura Lane sat on the other side of the table, her great dark eyes intently fixed on Josephine, and a look in which wonder was delicately shaded with disgust quivering about her mouth.  She was a feeling soul, and thought a girl in love ought to live on strawberries, honey, and spring-water.  I believe she really doubted Josey’s affection for Frank, when she saw her eat a real mortal meal on her wedding-day.  As for me, I am a poor, miserable, unhealthy creature, not amenable to ordinary dietetic rules, and much given to taking any excitement, above a certain amount in lieu of rational food; so I sustained myself on a cup of coffee, and saw Frank also make tolerable play of knife and fork, though he did take some blanc-mange with his cold chicken, and profusely peppered his Charlotte-Russe!

Mrs. Bowen alternately wept and ate pie.  Mr. Bowen said the jelly tasted of turpentine, and the chickens must have gone on Noah’s voyage, they were so tough; he growled at the ale, and asked nine questions about the coffee, all of a derogatory sort, and never once looked at Josephine, who looked at him every time he was particularly cross, with a rosy little smile, as if she knew why!  The few other people present behaved after the ordinary fashion; and when we had finished, Frank and Josephine, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen, Laura Lane and I, all took the train for Dartford.  Laura was to stay two weeks, and I till the regiment left.

An odd time I had, after we were fairly settled in our quiet hotel, with those two girls.  Laura was sentimental, sensitive, rather high-flown, very shy, and self-conscious; it was not in her to understand Josey at all.  We had a great deal of shopping to do, as our little bride had put off buying most of her finery till this time, on account of the few weeks between the fixing of her marriage-day and its arrival.  It was pretty enough to see the naive vanity with which she selected her dresses and shawls and laces,—­the quite inconsiderate way in which she spent her money on whatever she wanted.  One day we were in a dry-goods’ shop, looking at silks; among them lay one of Marie-Louise blue,—­a plain silk, rich from its heavy texture only, soft, thick, and perfect in color.