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and chatted as wittily as ever. In time, Anna partook of his mood and laughed back. She felt as if a weight had been lifted off her mind. At last they stopped at a little station called Whiteford. An old-fashioned carriage was waiting for them; they entered it and the driver, whipped up his horses. A drive of a half mile brought them to an ideal white cottage surrounded by porches and hidden in a tangle of vines. The door was opened for them by the Rev. John Langdon in person. He seemed a preternaturally grave young man to Anna and his clerical attire was above reproach. Any misgivings one might have had regarding him on the score of his youth, were more than counterbalanced by his almost supernatural gravity. He apologized for the absence of his wife, saying she had been called away suddenly, owing to the illness of her mother. His housekeeper and gardener would act as witnesses. Sanderson hastily took Anna to one side and said: "I forgot to tell you, darling, that I am going to be married by my two first names only, George Lennox. It is just the same, but if the Sanderson got into any of those country marriage license papers, I should be afraid the governor would hear of it--penalty of having a great name, you know," he concluded gayly. "Thought I had better mention it, as it would not do to have you surprised over your husband's name." Again the feeling of dread completely over-powered her. She looked at him with her great sorrowful eyes, as a trapped animal will sometimes look at its captor, but she could not speak. Some terrible blight seemed to have overgrown her brain, depriving her of speech and willpower. The witnesses entered. Anna was too agitated to notice that the Rev. John Langdon's housekeeper was a very singular looking young woman for her position. Her hair was conspicuously dark at the roots and conspicuously light on the ends. Her face was hard and when she smiled her mouth, assumed a wolfish expression. She was loudly dressed and wore a profusion of jewelry--altogether a most remarkable looking woman for the place she occupied. The gardener had the appearance of having been suddenly wakened before nature had had her full quota of sleep. He was blear-eyed and his breath was more redolent of liquor than one might have expected in the gardener of a parsonage. The room in which the ceremony was to take place was the ordinary cottage parlor, with crochet work on the chairs, an
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