no better place; so sacred a ceremony should be performed
'under the broad canopy of heaven,' and the birds of the air and the
countless leaves of the trees should sing their epithalamium.

After some search, it was decided that the happy spot should be on
'Huckleberry Hill,' a picturesque elevation about a mile from the
postoffice in Peonytown, covered with a luxurious growth of pines and
hemlocks, interspersed with huckleberry bushes, sweet fern, and
mullenstalks. A small, open place was selected, where the long moss made
a beautiful carpet, and the tall trees on every side entwined their arms
as lovingly together as if they, too, were about to take each other 'for
better for worse,' while the ripple of a brook hidden in the woods lent
a pleasant melody to the scene.

'This is the place of all others,' remarked Ann Harriet. 'Houses may
burn down or decay, churches may be sold and turned into ice-cream
saloons and lager-beer depots--as Mr. Dunstable's was; but these lofty
pines and rugged hemlocks will stand for centuries, to mark the spot
where, in my girlhood, I plighted my troth to that _dear_ Dobbs.'

Preparations for the bridal went gloriously on. The Peonytown dressmaker
was busy day and evening in making up the trousseau of the expectant
bride. The wedding dress was to be of fine white muslin, and no
ornaments to detract from its spotless purity.

The important day at length arrived. The sun rose warm, brilliant, calm,
and cloudless--and so did Ann Harriet. Her heart beat quick and
tumultuously as the coming event of the day suddenly occurred to her,
and she rejoiced to think that she was now to have _one_ to shield her
from the chilling blasts of a cold, relentless world--a husband on whose
breast her weary head could rest and feel secure.

These thoughts made her footsteps light, and she hastened to array
herself for the bridal, which, was appointed at ten o'clock. The barber
of Peonytown was sent for, and, although dressing a bride's hair was
something as yet unknown to him, yet, after much perseverance and more
ox marrow, he succeeded in twisting and braiding her luxuriant black
locks into a kind of triumphal-arched basketwork, that resembled a
miniature summer-house. The white muslin dress was then put on, and a
pair of white kid gloves drawn over her small fingers (plump people have
little hands), and Ann Harriet awaited her husband elect.

All Peonytown had been apprized of the hour of the wedding,