Frank Maberly.

Captain Brentwood, of the Artillery, would give this woman to be
married to this man, with ten thousand blessings on her head; and
Samuel Buckley, of Baroona, would take this woman as his wedded wife,
in sickness and health, for richer, for poorer, till death did them
part. And, "Yes, by George, he will," says Jim to himself,--but I heard
him, for we were reading out of the same Prayer-book.

And so it was all over. And the Doctor, who had all the morning been
invisible, and had only slipt into the room just as the ceremony had
began, wearing on his coat a great star, a prodigy, which had drawn
many eyes from their Prayer-books, the Doctor, I say, came up, star and
all, and taking Alice's hand, kissed her forehead, and then clasped a
splendid necklace round her throat.

Then followed all the usual kissings and congratulations, and then came
the breakfast. I hope Alice and Sam were happy, as happy as young folks
can be in such a state of flutter and excitement; but all I know is,
that the rest of the party were thoroughly and utterly miserable. The
certainty that this was the break-up of our happy old society, that all
that was young, and merry, and graceful, among us, was about to take
wing and leave us old folks sitting there lonely and dull. The thought,
that neither Baroona nor Garoopna could ever be again what they had
once been, and that never again we should hear those merry voices,
wakening us in the morning, or ringing pleasant by the river on the
soft summer's evening; these thoughts, I say, made us but a dull party,
although Covetown and the Doctor made talking enough for the rest of us.

There was something I could not understand about the Doctor. He talked
loud and nervously all breakfast time, and afterwards, when Alice had
retired to change her dress, and we were all standing about talking, he
came up to me in a quiet corner where I was, and took me by the hand.
"My dear old friend," he said, "you will never forget me, will you?"

"Forget you, Baron! never," I said. I would have asked him more, but
there was Alice in the room, in her pretty blue riding-habit and hat,
ready for a start, and Sam beside her, whip in hand; so we all crowded
out to say good-bye.

That was the worst time of all. Mrs. Buckley had said farewell and
departed. Jim was walking about, tearless, but quite unable to answer
me when I asked him a question. Those two grim old warriors, the
Captain and the Major, were