id Andrew to the preacher, "how much her proposal
meant, for you do not know through what she would have had to pass. But
I say that God does sometimes reward virtue in this world--a world not
quite worn out yet--and she is worthy of the reward in store for her."

Saying this, Andrew went into the closet leading to his secret
stairway--secret no longer, since Julia had ascended by that way--and
soon came down from his library with a paper in his hand.

"When you, my noble-hearted niece, proposed to make any sacrifice to
marry this studious, honest, true-hearted German gentleman, who is
worthy of you, if any man can be, I thought best to be ready for any
emergency, and so I went the next day and procured the license, the
clerk promising to keep my secret. A marriage-license is good for thirty
days. You will see, Mr. Williams, that this has not quite expired."

The minister looked at it and then said, "I depend on your judgment,
Mr. Anderson. There seems to be something peculiar about the
circumstances of this marriage."

"Very peculiar," said Andrew.

"You give me your word, then, that it is a marriage I ought to
solemnize?"

"The lady is my niece," said Andrew. "The marriage, taking place in this
castle, will shed more glory upon it than its whole history beside; and
you, sir, have never performed a marriage ceremony in a case where the
marriage was so excellent as this."

"Except the last one," put in Jonas.

I suppose Mr. Williams made the proper reductions for Andrew's
enthusiasm. But he was satisfied, and perhaps he was rather inclined to
be satisfied, for gentle-hearted old men are quite susceptible to a
romantic situation.

When he asked August if he would live with this woman in holy matrimony
"so long as ye both shall live," August, thinking the two hours of time
left to him too short for the earnestness of his vows, looked the old
minister in the eyes, and said solemnly: "For ever and ever!"

"No, my son," said the old man, smiling and almost weeping, "that is not
the right answer. I like your whole-hearted love. But it is far easier
to say 'for ever and ever,' standing as you think you do now on the
brink of eternity, than to say 'till death do us part,' looking down a
long and weary road of toil and sickness and poverty and change and
little vexations. You do not only take this woman, young and blooming,
but old and sick and withered and wearied, perhaps. Do you take her
for any lot?"

"For any