I tell you, Mary Martha Cary had what you could truly call a Time.  And Doctor Willwood said he never had enjoyed a morning in his life like that one.  Laugh?  I never heard a man laugh so hearty.  Half the time I couldn’t tell why.  I’d be real serious, but he’d look at me and almost die laughing.  I bet I said some things I oughtn’t, but I don’t remember, and I couldn’t take them back if I did.

* * * * *

It’s over.  The wedding is over.  Everything is after a while in this life, even death; and time is the only thing that keeps on just the same.

They’re gone.  Gone on their bridal tour, and the happiness that’s left Yorkburg would run a family for a long life.  I wish everybody could have seen that wedding.  It’s going to be long remembered, for the earth and sky, and birds and flowers, and trees and sunshine all took part.  Everything tried to help, and as for blessings on them, they took away enough for the human race.  But now it’s over I feel like my first balloon looked when I stuck a pin in it to see what would happen.  I saw.

I had a telegram from them to-day.  It said: 

     We sail at eleven o’clock.  Love to all, and hearts full for Mary
     Cary.

     Uncle Parke and aunt Katherine.

Well, she’s my Aunt now.  That’s fixed, anyhow, and the marriage that fixed it was a beauty.  Every bird in Yorkburg was singing, every flower was blooming, and every heart was blessing; and when those fifty-eight orphans walked in, all in white and two by two, every hand was dropping roses.  And that is what each girl was wishing:  Roses, roses all her life!

After the ushers, I came in all alone by myself; that is, my shape did.  Mary was really inside the altar looking at me coming up slow and easy, and Martha was ordering me to keep step to the music.  “All right, I’m doing my best,” I was saying to both.  And I was, but I was thankful when I got to where I could stop, for my legs were so excited I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d turned and run out.

Behind me came Miss Katherine, on her Army brother’s arm.  He’s as nice as the other isn’t.  He hasn’t got the money-making disease.  When Uncle Parke and Doctor Willwood came out of the vestry-room Uncle Parke gave me one look, just one, but it was so understanding I winked back, and then he came farther down and stood by Miss Katherine like she was his until kingdom come, forever more.  Amen.

Then the minister began, and the music was so soft you could hear the birds outside.  The breeze through the window blew right on Miss Katherine’s veil, and I was so busy watching it I didn’t know the time had come to pray, and I hardly got my head bent before I had to take it up again.  Then the minister was through, and I was walking down the aisle with Doctor Willwood, and in just about two minutes more we were back at the Asylum, and it was all over—­the thing we’d been looking forward to so long.