tomacher, brooches, rings--was drawn
from its place. Grandmother had the key of it, and came to open it,
Beret acting as her assistant. Mildrid had put on her wedding-dress
and all the ornaments that belonged to herself, before this grandeur
(well polished by Beret and grandmother the week before) came to
light, glittering and heavy. One after another each ornament was
tried. Beret held the mirror in front of the bride. Grandmother told
how many of her family had worn these silver things on their
wedding-day, the happiest of them all her own mother, Aslaug Haugen.

Presently they heard the Bridal March played outside; they all
stopped, listened, and then hurried to the door to see what it meant.
The first person they saw was Endrid, the bride's father. He had seen
Hans Haugen with his brothers and sisters coming driving up the road
to the farm. It was not often that any idea out of the common came to
Endrid, but on this occasion it did occur to him that these guests
ought to be received with the March of their race. He called out the
fiddlers and started them; he was standing beside them himself, and
some others had joined him, when Hans and his good brothers and
sisters, in two carriages, drove into the yard. It was easily seen
that this reception touched them.

An hour later the March of course struck up again. This was when the
bride and bridegroom, and after them the bride's parents, came out,
with the players going before them, to get into the carriages. At some
great moments in our lives all the omens are propitious; to-day the
bridal party drove away from Tingvold in glorious spring weather. The
crowd at the church was so great that no one remembered having seen
the like of it, on any occasion. And in this gathering each person
knew the story of the family, and its connection with the Bridal March
which was sounding exultantly in the sunshine over the heads of bride
and bridegroom.

And because they were all thinking of the one thing, the pastor took a
text for his address that allowed him to explain how our children are
our life's crown, bearing clear witness to our honour, our
development, our work.

On the way back from the altar Hans stopped just outside the
church-door; he said something; the bride, in her superhuman
happiness, did not hear it; but she felt what it was. He wished her to
look at Ole Haugen's grave, how richly clad in flowers it lay to-day.
She looked, and they passed out almost touching