stairs, the furniture, flows the benign influence of undispersed
memories; it sheds its tempered radiance upon the old miniatures, and
upon every fresh flower that comes in from the garden; it seems to pass
through the open doors to and fro like a tranquil blessing; it is beyond
joy and pain, because time has distilled it from both of these; it
is the assembled essence of kinship and blood unity, enriched by each
succeeding brood that is born, is married, is fruitful in its turn, and
dies remembered; only the balm of faith is stronger to sustain and heal;
for that comes from heaven, while it is earth that gives us this; and
the sacred cup of it which our native land once held is almost empty.

Amid this influence John and Eliza were made one, and the faces of
the older generations grew soft beneath it, and pensive eyes became
lustrous, and into pale cheeks the rosy tint came like an echo faintly
back for a short hour. They made so little sound in their quiet
happiness of congratulation that it might have been a dream; and they
were so few that the house with the sense of its memories was not lost
with the movement and crowding, but seemed still to preside over the
whole, and send down its benediction.

When it was my turn to shake the hands of bride and groom, John asked:--

"What did your friend do with your advice?"

And I replied. "He has taken it."

"Perhaps not that," John returned, "but you must have helped him to see
his way."

When the bride came to cut the cake, she called me to her and fulfilled
her promise.

"You have always liked my baking," she said.

"Then you made it after all," I answered.

"I would not have been married without doing so," she declared sweetly.

When the time came for them to go away, they were surrounded with
affectionate God-speeds; but Miss Josephine St. Michael waited to be
the last, standing a little apart, her severe and chiselled face turned
aside, and seeming to watch a mocking-bird that was perched in his cage
at a window halfway up the stairs.

"He is usually not so silent," Miss Josephine said to me. "I suppose we
are too many visitors for him."

Then I saw that the old lady, beneath her severity, was deeply moved;
and almost at once John and Eliza came down the stairs. Miss Josephine
took each of them to her heart, but she did not trust herself to speak;
and a single tear rolled down her face, as the boy and girl continued to
the hall-door. There Daddy Ben stoo