a garden of flowers.

Chapter XXXV: _The Marriage of Columbine_

Trewhella spent in Cornwall the fortnight during which Jenny insisted on
dancing out her contract with the Orient. The withdrawal, ostensibly to
prepare his mother for the wife's arrival, was a wise move on his part,
for Jenny was left merely with the contemplation of marriage as an
abstract condition of existence undismayed by the presence of a future
husband whom she did not regard with any affection. She did not announce
her decision to the girls in the theater until the night before her
departure. At once ensued a chorus of surprise, encouragement,
speculation and good wishes.

"If I don't like Cornwall," Jenny declared, "I shall jolly soon come
back to dear old London. Don't you worry yourselves."

"Write to us, Jenny," the girls begged.

"Rather."

"And mind you come and see us first time you get to London."

"Of course I shall," she promised and, perhaps to avoid tears, ran
quickly down the court, with her box of grease paints underneath her
arm.

"Good luck," cried all the girls, waving farewell in silhouette against
the dull orange opening of the stage door.

"See you soon," she called back over her shoulder. "Good-bye, all."

Another chorus of good-byes traveled in pursuit along the darkness as,
leaving behind her a legend of mirth, an echo of laughter, she vanished
round the corner.

Jenny and Trewhella were married next morning in a shadowy old church
from whose gloom the priest emerged like a spectre. She was seized with
a desire to laugh when she found herself kneeling beside Trewhella. She
fell to wondering how May was looking behind her, and wished, when the
moment came for her father to give her away, that he would not clip his
tongue between his teeth, as if he were engaged on a delicate piece of
joinery. Mr. Corin, too, kept up a continuous grunting and, when through
the pervading silence of the dark edifice any noise echoed, she dreaded
the rustle of Aunt Mabel's uninvited approach. It did not take so long
to be married as to be buried, and the ceremony was concluded sooner
than she expected. In the registry she blushed over the inscription of
her name, and let fall a large blot like a halo above her spinsterhood.
Luckily there was no time for jests and banqueting as, in order to
arrive in Cornwall that night, it was necessary to catch the midday
train from Paddington. Jenny looked very small beneath the station's