Once during the period of his judgeship Richard had attended a large and fashionable bridal party, but when, on his return to Olney, Melinda Jones questioned him with regard to the dresses of the bride and the guests, he found himself utterly unable to give either fabric, fashion, or even color, so little attention had he given to the subject.  He never noticed such things, he said, but he believed some of the dresses were made of something flimsy, for he could see through them, and he knew they were very long, for he had stepped on some half dozen.  And this was all the information the inquisitive Melinda could obtain.  Dress was of little consequence, he thought, so it was clean and whole.

This was his theory; but when, as the twilight deepened on the Chicopee hills, and the lamps were lighted in Aunt Barbara’s parlors, and old Captain Markham began to wonder “why the plague the folks did not come,” as he stalked up and down the piazza in all the pride and pomposity of one who felt himself to all intents and purposes the village aristocrat, and when the mysterious door of Ethie’s room, which had been closed so long, was opened, and the bridegroom told that he might go in, he started in surprise at the beautiful tableau presented to his view as he stepped across the threshold.  As was natural, he fancied that never before had he seen three young girls so perfectly beautiful as the three before him—­Ethie, and Susie, and Nettie.

As a matter of course, he gave the preference to Ethelyn, who was very, very lovely in her bridal robes, with the orange wreath resting like a coronet upon her marble brow.  There were pearls upon her fair neck and pearls upon her arms, the gift of Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, who had waited till the very last, hoping the Judge would have forethought enough to buy them himself.  But the Judge had not.  He knew something of diamonds, for they had been Daisy’s favorites; but pearls were novelties to him, and Ethelyn’s pale cheeks would have burned crimson had she known that he was thinking “how becoming those white beads were to her.”

Poor, ignorant Richard!  He will know more by and by of what constitutes a fashionable lady’s toilet; but now he is in blissful ignorance of minutiae, and sees only the tout ensemble, which he pronounces perfect.  He was half afraid of her, though, she seemed so cold, so passive, so silent, and when in the same breath Susie Granger asks if he ever saw anyone so lovely as Ethelyn and bids him kiss her quick, he starts and hesitates, and finally kisses Susie instead.  He might, perhaps, have done the same with Ethelyn if she had not stepped backward to avoid it, her long train sweeping across the hearth where that morning she had knelt in such utter desolation, and where now was lying a bit of blackened paper, which the housemaid’s broom had not found when, early in the day, the room was swept and dusted.  So Ethelyn’s white satin brushed against the gossamer thing, which floated upward for a moment, and then settled back upon the heavy, shining folds.  It was Richard who saw it first, and Richard’s hand which brushed away the skeleton of Frank’s letter from the skirts of his bride, leaving a soiled, yellowish stain, which Susie Granger loudly deplored, while Ethelyn only drew her drapery around her, saying coldly, that “it did not matter in the least.  She would as soon have it there as not.”