talked and drank
healths, and the most cheerful humour reigned; the bride's parents were
quite happy; the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, eat but
little, and took no part in the conversation. He started when some
musical sounds rolled down from above, but grew calm again on finding it
was nothing but the soft notes of a bugle, which wandered along with a
pleasant murmur over the shrubs and through the park, till they died
away on the distant hills. Roderick had stationed the musicians in the
gallery overhead, and Emilius was satisfied with this arrangement.
Toward the end of the dinner he called his butler, and turning to his
bride, said, 'My love, let poverty also have a share of our
superfluities.' He then ordered him to send several bottles of wine,
some pastry, and other dishes in abundant portions, to the poor couple,
so that with them also this day might be a day of rejoicing, unto which
in after-times they might look back with delight. 'See, my friend,'
cried Roderick, 'how beautifully all things in this world hang together.
My idle trick of busying myself about other people's concerns, and my
chattering, though you are for ever finding fault with them, have after
all been the occasion of this good deed.' Several persons began making
pretty speeches to their host on his compassion and kind heart, and the
young lady next to Roderick lisped about romantic feelings and
sentimental magnanimity. 'O, hold your tongues,' cried Emilius
indignantly. 'This is no good action; it is no action at all; it is
nothing. When swallows and linnets feed themselves with the crumbs that
are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and carry them to their
young ones in their nests, shall not I remember a poor brother who needs
my help? If I durst follow my heart, ye would laugh and jeer at me, just
as ye have laughed and jeered at many others who have gone forth into
the wilderness, that they might hear no more of this world and its
generosity.'

Everybody was silent, and Roderick, perceiving the most vehement
displeasure in his friend's glowing eyes, feared he might forget himself
still more in his present ungracious mood, and tried to give the
conversation a sudden turn upon other subjects. But Emilius was becoming
restless and absent; his eyes were continually wandering toward the
upper gallery, where the servants who lived in the top story had many
things to do.

'Who is that ugly old woman,' he at length asked, 't