soberest man present.
Ordinarily he could be counted on to enliven such occasions, but to-day
his fits of hilarity were only momentary, and during the intervals he was
observed by the Bishop's son to be gazing somewhat yearningly into space
with an abstraction new to him.

Nobody knew just how the moment for the ceremony arrived. But when the
survey of the house was over and everybody had instinctively come back to
the living-room, the affair was brought about most naturally. The Bishop,
at a word from the best man, took his place in the doorway opening upon
the porch, which had been set in a great nodding border of goldenrod.
Anthony, making his way among his guests, came with a quiet face up to
Juliet and, bending, said softly, "Now, dear?" A hush followed instantly,
and the guests fell back to places at the sides of the room. Anthony's
best man was at his elbow, and the two went over to the Bishop, to stand
by his side. Mr. Marcy moved quietly into his place. Juliet, with Judith,
who had kept beside her, walked across the floor, and Anthony, meeting
her, led her a step farther to face the Bishop. It was but a suggestion of
the usual convention, and Anthony, in his white clothes, surrounded as he
was by men in frock-coats, was assuredly the most unconventional
bridegroom that had ever been seen. Juliet, too, wore the simplest of
white gowns, with no other adornment than that of her own beauty. Yet,
somehow, as the guests, grown sober in an instant, looked on and noted
these things, there was not one who felt that either grace or dignity was
lacking. The rich voice of the Bishop was as impressive as it had ever
been in chancel or at altar; the look on Anthony's face was one which
fitted the tone in which he spoke his vows; and Juliet, giving herself to
the man whose altered fortunes she was agreeing to share, bore a
loveliness which made her a bride one would remember long--and envy.

"There, that's done," said the Bishop's son with a gusty sigh of relief,
which brought the laugh so necessary to the relaxing of the tension which
accompanies such scenes. "Jove, it's a good thing to see a fellow like
Robeson safely tied up at last. You never can tell where these quixotic
ideas about houses and hay-wagons and weddings may lead. It's a terrible
strain, though, to see people married. I always tremble like a leaf--I
weigh only a hundred and ninety-eight now, and these things affect me.
It's so frightful to think what might