Betty and Hugh were among the bridesmaids and pages, and Hugh shocked Betty very much by saying, in the middle of the service “When may I play with my girl?”

Some one described Uncle Jim as looking like one of the Apostles, and Aunt Cecilia certainly looked like a saint.  Ought I, by the way, to bracket an apostle and a saint?  But nothing was so wonderful or so beautiful as the expression on Pauline’s face.  I am sure that, as she walked up the aisle, she was oblivious to everything and every one except God and Dick.

It is assuredly a great responsibility for a man to accept such a love as hers.

A wedding is nearly always a choky thing, and Pauline’s was particularly so.  As she left the church, she stopped in the churchyard to speak to her friends, and for one old woman she waited to let her feel her dress.

“Is it my jewels you want to feel, Anne?” she said, as the old hands tremblingly passed over her bodice.  “I have on no jewels.”

The old hands went up to Pauline’s face and gently and reverently touched it.  “God bless her happy face,” said the old woman.  “I had to know for sure.”  Pauline kissed the old fingers gently.  We all knew for sure, but then we had eyes to see.

Pauline went away in the afternoon, and the villagers danced far into the evening, and there was revelry in the park by night.

After Pauline and Dick had gone away, I walked across the park to the post office to send a telegram to Julia, who was kept at home by illness, to her very great disappointment.  There is nothing she adores like a wedding.  I was glad to escape for a few minutes.  I wrote out the telegram and handed it to the postmaster, who, reading it, said, I’m glad it went off so well.  “There’s nobody what wouldn’t wish her well.”  Then he counted the words.  “Julia Westby?” he said.  “Um-um-um-um.  Eleven, miss.  You might as well give her the title.”  I laughed and added, or rather he added, the “Lady.”

Julia is not a sister-in-law really, but she likes to call herself so, since she might have been one, having been for one ecstatic week in Archie’s life engaged to him.  She is wont now to lay her hand on his head, in public, for choice, and say, “He was almost mine.”  She says she still loves him as a friend.  “But, you see, dearest Betty, there is everything that is delightful in the relationship of a poor friend, but a poor husband!  That is another thing.  To begin with, it is not fair to a man that he should have to deny his wife things.  It is bad for his character and, of course, for hers.  He becomes a saint at her expense, whereas the expense should always be borne by the husband.  William is so delightfully rich, but he is not an Archie, of course!  But then husbands are not supposed to be.”

Hugh, going to bed, wondered if the angels would bring Pauline a baby that night, a darling little baby!

And Betty said, in her great wisdom, “Oh, darling, I think it would be too exciting for Pauline to be married and have a baby all on one day.”