was able to respond.

"Yes," she said, at last, a solemn sweetness in her unsteady tones,
"the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."

She often wondered afterward how it happened that those words of
blessing, once uttered by a patriarch of old, should have slipped
almost unconsciously from her lips.

She did not even wait to note their effect upon her companion, but,
gliding swiftly past him, went on her way.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CONCLUSION.

Three months after the incidents related in our previous chapter a
large and fashionable audience assembled, one bright day, in a certain
church on Madison avenue to witness a marriage that had been
anticipated with considerable interest and curiosity among the smart
set.

Exactly at the last stroke of noon the bridal party passed down the
central aisle.

It was composed of four ushers, as many bridesmaids a maid of honor
and two stately, graceful figures in snow-white apparel.

One of these latter was a veiled bride, her tall, willowy figure clad
in gleaming satin, her golden head crowned with natural orange
blossoms, and she carried an exquisite bouquet of the same fragrant
flowers in her ungloved hands--for the groom had forbidden the
conventional white kids in this ceremony--while on her lovely face
there was a light and sweetness which only perfect happiness could
have painted there.

Her companion, a woman of regal presence and equally beautiful in her
way, was clothed in costly white velvet, richly garnished with pearls
and rare old point lace.

The fair bride and her attendant were no other than Isabel Stewart and
her daughter.

"Who should give away my darling save her own mother?" she had
questioned, with smiling but tremulous lips, when this matter was
being discussed, together with other preparations for the wedding.

Edith was delighted with the idea, and thus it was carried out in the
way described.

The party was met at the chancel by Roy, accompanied by his best man
and the clergyman, where the ceremony was impressively performed,
after which the happy couple led the way from the church with those
sweetest strains of Mendelssohn beating their melodious rhythm upon
their ears and joyful hearts.

It was an occasion for only smiles and gladness; but, away in a dim
corner of that vast edifice, there sat a solitary figure, with bowed
head and pale face, over which--as there fell upon his ears those
solemn words, "till dea