the grape-trellis, looked at--I don't
know what--and was as silent as we were.

Where is _your_ marriage-license, married reader? Do you know? Four
men, not including Mr. Brede, stood or sat on one side or the other of
that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his
marriage-license was. Each of us had had one--the Major had had three.
But where were they? Where is _yours?_ Tucked in your best-man's
pocket; deposited in his desk--or washed to a pulp in his white
waistcoat (if white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), washed out
of existence--can you tell where it is? Can you--unless you are one of
those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon
their drawing-room walls?

Mr. Brede's voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like
five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds:

"Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it?
I shall leave by the six o'clock train. And will you also send the
wagon for my trunks?"

"I hain't said I wanted to hev ye leave----" began Mr. Jacobus; but
Brede cut him short.

"Bring me your bill."

"But," remonstrated Jacobus, "ef ye ain't----"

"Bring me your bill!" said Mr. Brede.

* * * * *

My wife and I went out for our morning's walk. But it seemed to us,
when we looked at "our view," as if we could only see those invisible
villages of which Brede had told us--that other side of the ridges and
rises of which we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from the
heights of human self-esteem. We meant to stay out until the Bredes
had taken their departure; but we returned just in time to see Pete,
the Jacobus darkey, the blacker of boots, the brasher of coats, the
general handy-man of the house, loading the Brede trunks on the
Jacobus wagon.

And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down came Mrs. Brede, leaning on
Mr. Brede's arm, as though she were ill; and it was clear that she had
been crying. There were heavy rings about her pretty black eyes.

My wife took a step toward her.

"Look at that dress, dear," she whispered; "she never thought anything
like this was going to happen when she put _that_ on."

It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped
affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow-striped silk of the same
colors--maroon and white--and in her hand she held a parasol that
matched her dress.

"She's had a new dress on twice a day," said my wife, "but that's