We had invited a few friends and relations to witness the ceremony, at eight o’clock.  I had been consulted so often on various matters that it was dark before I finished my tasks.  The last was to arrange some flowers I had ordered in Milford.  I kept a bunch of them in reserve for Verry’s plate; for we were to have a supper, at father’s request, who thought it would be less tiresome to feed the guests than to talk to them.  Verry did not know this, though she had asked several times why we were all so busy.

It was near seven when I went upstairs to find her.  Temperance had sent Manuel and Fanny to the different rooms with tea, bread and butter, and the message that it was all we were to have at present.  Ben had been extremely silent since his arrival, and disposed to reading.  I looked over his shoulder once, and saw that it was “Scott’s Life of Napoleon” he perused; and an hour after, being obliged to ask him a question, saw him still at the same page.  He was now dressing probably.  Helen and Alice were in their rooms.  Mr. Somers was napping on the parlor sofa; father was meditating at his old post in the dining-room and smoking.  It was a familiar picture; but there was a rent in the canvas and a figure was missing—­she who had been its light!

I found Verry sound asleep on the sofa in my room.

A glass full of milk was on the floor beside her, and a plate with a slice of bread.  The lamp had been lighted by some one, and carefully shaded from her face.  She had been restless, I thought, for her hair had fallen out of the comb and half covered her face, which was like marble in its whiteness and repose.  Her right arm was extended; I took her hand, and her warm, humid fingers closed over mine.

“Wake up, Verry; it is time to be married.”

She opened her eyes without stirring and fixed them upon me.  “Do you know any man who is like Ben?  Or was it he whom I have just left in the dark world of sleep?”

“I know his brother, who is like him, but dark in complexion—­and his hair is black.”

“His hair is not black.”

I rushed out of the room, muttering some excuse, came back and arranged her toilette; but she remained with her arm still extended, and continued: 

“It was a strange place where we met; curious, dusty old trees grew about it.  He was cutting the back of one with a dagger, and the pieces he carved out fell to the ground, as if they were elastic.  He made me pick them up, though I wished to listen to a man who was lying under one of the trees, wrapped in a cloak, keeping time with his dagger, and singing a wild air.

“‘What do you see?’ said the first.

“‘A letter on every piece,’ I answered, and spelt Cassandra.  ’Are you Ben transformed?’ I asked, for he had his features, his air, though he was a swarthy, spare man, with black, curly hair, dashed with gray; but he pricked my arm with his dagger, and said, ‘Go on.’  I picked up the rest, and spelt ‘Somers.’