She and Richard went to the minister’s house early one Sabbath morning, and were married.  Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on Richard’s arm.  They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on the opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia’s old pew.  It seemed to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, as of old, if she looked across.  She fixed her eyes straight ahead, and never glanced at Richard by her side.  She held her white-bonneted head up like some gentle flower which had sprung back to itself after a hard wind.  She had a new white bridal bonnet, as Richard had wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and ribbons, and she wore a long white-worked veil over her face.  The wrought net-work, as delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines and fixed tints, and gave to her face an illusion of girlhood.  She wore the two curls over her cheeks.  Richard had asked her why she didn’t curl her hair as she used to do.

All the people saw Sylvia’s white bonnet; it seemed to turn their eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the light in the meeting-house.  But there were a few women who eyed more sharply Sylvia’s wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the very ones which poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own bridal.  Sylvia was just about her niece’s height; the gown had needed a little taking in to fit her thinner form, and that was all.

Charlotte’s mother had brought them over to Sylvia’s one night, all nicely folded in white linen towels.

“Charlotte wants you to have ’em; she says she won’t ever need ’em, poor child!” she said, in response to Sylvia’s remonstrances.  Mrs. Barnard’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying.  It had apparently been harder for her to give up the poor slighted wedding-clothes than for her daughter.  Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if she herself wore it.

“Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them,” she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments of some one who was dead.

“Seems to me, as much as they cost, you’d ought to wear ’em yourself,” said her mother.

“I never shall,” Charlotte said, firmly; “and they might just as well do somebody some good.”  Charlotte’s New England thrift and practical sense stretched her sentiment on the rack, and she never made a sound.

Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash of green and purple from Sylvia’s silken skirt as she turned the corner of the old road with Richard.  “She’s got on Charlotte’s wedding-dress.  She’s—­given it to her,” he said, with a gasp.  He had never forgotten it since the day Charlotte had shown it to him.  He had pictured her in it, hundreds of times, to his own delight and torment.  He had a fierce impulse to rush out and strip his Charlotte’s wedding-clothes from this other bride’s back.