’Poor Billy!  I am awful sorry for him, but I can’t let him have you, Jerrie,’ Harold said, passing the note back to her, and kissing her tenderly, as he added:  ’That is my last kiss for Jerrie Tracy, my little girl of the carpet-bag.  When I kiss you again, you will be my wife.’

‘Come, children, we are waiting,’ came with startling distinctness from Arthur at the foot of the stairs, and then Harold and Jerrie went down to the parlor, where they were soon made one, Arthur giving the bride away, and behaving pretty well under the circumstances.

He had been very flighty the day before, insisting that Jerrie should be married in white, with a blue ribbon on her bonnet, just as Gretchen had been, and when she reminded him of Maude’s recent death, he replied: 

‘Well, Gretchen will wear colors if you do not.’

And again he brought out and laid upon his bed the dress bought in Paris years before, and which had been waiting for Gretchen on that stormy night when he heard the wild cry of the dying woman above the wintery gale.  She was with him again in fancy, and when he went out to the carriage which was to carry him to the cottage, he stepped back and stood a moment by the door as if to let some one enter before him, and all during the ceremony those nearest to him heard him whispering to himself, ‘I, Arthur, take thee, Gretchen,’ and so forth; but when it was over he came to himself and seemed perfectly rational, as he kissed his daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law, to whom he gave a check for ten thousand dollars, saying as he did so, that young men must have a little spending money.

It was a very pleasant wedding, and every one seemed happy, even to Dick, whose spirits, however, were rather too gay to be quite natural, and whose voice shook just a little as he called Jerrie Mrs. Hasting, and told her he hoped to see her in Paris in the spring as he thought of going over there with Nina to join the Raymonds.

’Oh, I hope you will!  Nothing could make me so happy as to meet you there,’ Jerrie said, looking at him with an expression which told him she was thinking of the pines and was sorry for him.

The newly married pair were going directly to New York, where Arthur was to join them on the 4th, as the Germanic sailed the 15th.

All the wedding guests accompanied them to the station, Tom accepting a seat in the coupe with Ann Eliza, who wore her two hundred dollar gown, and was, of course, overdressed.  But Tom did not think much about that.  He was ill at ease that morning, though trying to seem natural; and when the train which took Jerrie away disappeared from view, he felt as if everything which had made life desirable had left him forever, and he cared but little now what he did, or with whom his lot was cast.

So when Ann Eliza, who had cried at parting with Jerrie, dried her eyes and said to him, ’It is such a fine day; suppose we drive along the river; it may dispel the blues,’ he assented, and soon found himself bowling along the smooth turnpike with Ann Eliza, whom he thought rather interesting, with the tears shed for Jerrie on her long, light eyelashes.