d anticipated, as we looked out of the window
at the last pink glow of the sunset, the urchin reappeared, walking
with great strides beside a spare little-figure, whom we recognized as
the worthy doctor himself.

"Good gracious! he _is_ in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily
from the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!"

We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the
bridal-party should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and
walked into the room without prelude. He took Bessie in his arms with
fatherly tenderness: "Ah, you runaway! so you've come back at last?"

"Yes, doctor, and don't you let go of her until you have married her
fast to me."

"Ahem!" said the doctor, clearing his throat, "that is just what I
came to advise you about. Hiram told me this afternoon of the chase
you two had had, and of your illness this morning. Now, as it is half
over the village by this time that Bessie Stewart has been rescued
from the Shaker village by a chivalrous young gentleman, and as
everybody is wild with impatience to know the _denoument_, I want you
to come down quietly to the church this evening and be married after
evening service."

"To please everybody?" I said, in no very pleasant humor.

"I think it will be wisest, best; and I am sure this discreetest of
women," still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not
sit through the service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun;
and you may sit in the vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a
short sermon to-night," with a benignant chuckle.

He had his will. Some feeling that it would please Mrs. Sloman best,
the only person besides ourselves whom it concerned us to please,
settled it in Bessie's mind, although she anxiously inquired several
times before the doctor left if I felt equal to going to church.
Suppose I should faint on the way?

I was equal to it, for I took a long nap on the sofa in Mrs.
Splinter's parlor through the soft spring twilight, while Bessie held
what seemed to me interminable conferences with Mary Jane.

It was not a brilliant ceremony so far as the groom was concerned.
As we stood at the chancel-rail I am afraid that the congregation,
largely augmented, by this time, by late-comers--for the doctor had
spread the news through the village far and wide--thought me but a
very pale and quiet bridegroom.

But the bride's beauty made amends for all. Just the same soft whit