ting off after the wedding. There
will be no one else, for even our own people are going, for Harry is to
go to Maplewood with Blanche, and Aubrey has to be at Woolwich; but we
shall all be at home to-night.'

'Last time was in the volunteer days, two or three centuries ago.'

It was strange how, with this naturally least congenial of all the
family, Ethel had a certain understanding and fellow-feeling that gave
her a sense of rest and relief in his company, only impaired by the
dread of rubs between him and his father. None, however, happened; Dr.
May had been too much hurt to press the question of the inheritance,
and took little notice of Tom, being much occupied with the final
business about the wedding, and engrossed by Hector and Harry, who
always absorbed him in their short intervals of his company. Tom went
to see Dr. Spencer, and brought him in, so cheerful and full of life,
that what Ethel had been hearing seemed like a dream, excepting when
she recognized Tom's unobtrusive gentleness and attention towards him.

She was surprised and touched through all the harass and hurry of that
evening and morning, to find the 'must be dones' that had of late
devolved on her alone, now lightened and aided by Tom, who appeared to
have come for the sole purpose of being always ready to give a helping
hand where she wanted it, with all Richard's manual dexterity, and more
resource and quickness. The refreshment of spirits was the more
valuable as this was a very unexciting wedding. Even Gertrude, not yet
fourteen, had been surfeited with weddings, and replied to Harry's old
wit of 'three times a bridesmaid and never a bride,' that she hoped so,
her experience of married life was extremely flat; and a glance at
Blanche's monotonous dignity, and Flora's worn face, showed what that
experience was.

Harry was the only one to whom there was the freshness of novelty, and
he was the great element of animation; but as the time came near,
honest Harry had been seized with a mortal dread of the tears he
imagined an indispensable adjunct of the ceremony, and went about
privately consulting every one how much weeping was inevitable. Flora
told him she saw no reason for any tears, and Ethel that when people
felt very much they couldn't cry; but on the other hand, Blanche said
she felt extremely nervous, and knew she should be overcome; Gertrude
assured him that on all former occasions Mary did all the crying
herself; and Aubrey to