“No, I will be married in my uniform as David is,” she answered with a look Letty long remembered.

“Mr. Power has come,” she said softly a few minutes later, with an anxious glance at the clock.

“Go dear, I’ll come directly.  But first”—­and Christie held her friend close a moment, kissed her tenderly, and whispered in a broken voice:  “Remember, I don’t take his heart from you, I only share it with my sister and my mother.”

“I’m glad to give him to you, Christie; for now I feel as if I had partly paid the great debt I’ve owed so long,” answered Letty through her tears.

Then she went away, and Christie soon followed, looking very like a Quaker bride in her gray gown with no ornament but delicate frills at neck and wrist, and the roses in her bosom.

“No bridal white, dear?” said David, going to her.

“Only this,” and she touched the flowers, adding with her hand on the blue coat sleeve that embraced her:  “I want to consecrate my uniform as you do yours by being married in it.  Isn’t it fitter for a soldier’s wife than lace and silk at such a time as this?”

“Much fitter:  I like it; and I find you beautiful, my Christie,” whispered David, as she put one of her roses in his button-hole.

“Then I’m satisfied.”

“Mr. Power is waiting:  are you ready, love?”

“Quite ready.”

Then they were married, with Letty and her mother standing beside them, Bennet and his wife dimly visible in the door-way, and poor Bran at his master’s feet, looking up with wistful eyes, half human in the anxious affection they expressed.

Christie never forgot that service, so simple, sweet, and solemn; nor the look her husband gave her at the end, when he kissed her on lips and forehead, saying fervently, “God bless my wife!”

A tender little scene followed that can better be imagined than described; then Mr. Power said cheerily: 

“One hour more is all you have, so make the most of it, dearly beloved.  You young folks take a wedding-trip to the green-house, while we see how well we can get on without you.”

“Then they were married.”

David and Christie went smiling away together, and if they shed any tears over the brief happiness no one saw them but the flowers, and they loyally kept the secret folded up in their tender hearts.

Mr. Power cheered the old lady, while Letty, always glad to serve, made ready the last meal David might ever take at home.

A very simple little marriage feast, but more love, good-will, and tender wishes adorned the plain table than is often found at wedding breakfasts; and better than any speech or song was Letty’s broken whisper, as she folded her arms round David’s empty chair when no one saw her, “Heaven bless and keep and bring him back to us.”

How time went that day!  The inexorable clock would strike twelve so soon, and then the minutes flew till one was at hand, and the last words were still half said, the last good-byes still unuttered.