en. There was a drop of sardonic blood in him, that made
him challenge her even at the moment of achieved surrender.

"By Jove," he thought to himself, "can she be as beautiful as she
looks?"

Then the service began, and they had the celebration first, and
afterward the usual ceremony, perfectly conducted, and including the
rather over-exercised "Voice that Breathed o'er Eden." The dean gave
them an excellent, short and evasive address about their married duties,
a great deal nicer than anything in the Prayer Book, and the March from
Lohengrin took them to the vestry. In the vestry Winn began to be
tiresome. The vicar said:

"Kiss the bride," and Winn replied:

"No, thanks; not at present," looking like a stone wall, and sticking
his hands in his pockets. The vicar, who had known him from a boy, did
not press the point; but of course the dean looked surprised. Any dean
would.

The reception afterwards would have been perfect but for the Staines,
who tramped through everything. Estelle perpetually saw them bursting
into places where they weren't wanted, and shouting remarks which
sounded abusive but were meant to be cordial to cowering Fanshawes and
Arnots. It was really not necessary for Sir Peter to say in the middle
of the lawn that what Mr. Fanshawe wanted was more manure.

It seemed to Estelle that wherever she went she heard Sir Peter's
resonant voice talking about manure.

Lady Staines was much quieter; still she needn't have remarked to
Estelle's mother, "Well--I'm glad to see you have seven children, _that_
looks promising at any rate." It made two unmarried ladies of uncertain
age walk into a flower-bed.

Winn behaved abominably. He took the youngest Fanshawe child and
disappeared with him into the stable yard.

Even Charles and James behaved better than that. They hurled well-chosen
incomprehensible jokes at the clergyman's daughters--dreadful girls who
played hockey and had known the Staines all their lives--and these
ladies returned their missiles with interest.

It caused a good deal of noise, but it sounded hearty.

Isabella, being a clergyman's wife, talked to the Dean, who soon looked
more astonished than ever.

At last it was all comfortably over. Estelle, leaning on her father's
arm in pale blue, kissed her mother. Mrs. Fanshawe looked at the end
rather tactlessly cheerful. (She had cried throughout the ceremony,
just when she had worn the mauve hat and Estelle had hoped she
wouldn't.)