as known through the country as that of a
great lawyer; people discussed his speeches and character far and wide;
and the well-informed in legal gossip spoke of him as sure to be offered
a judgeship at the next vacancy. So he, though grave, and middle-aged,
and somewhat grey, divided attention and remark with his lovely bride,
and her pretty train of cousin bridesmaids. Miss Monro need not have
feared for Ellinor: she saw and heard all things as in a mist--a dream;
as something she had to go through, before she could waken up to a
reality of brightness in which her youth, and the hopes of her youth,
should be restored, and all these weary years of dreaminess and woe
should be revealed as nothing but the nightmare of a night. She sat
motionless enough, still enough, Miss Monro by her, watching her as
intently as a keeper watches a madman, and with the same purpose--to
prevent any outburst even by bodily strength, if such restraint be
needed. When all was over; when the principal personages of the ceremony
had filed into the vestry to sign their names; when the swarm of
townspeople were going out as swiftly as their individual notions of the
restraints of the sacred edifice permitted; when the great chords of the
"Wedding March" clanged out from the organ, and the loud bells pealed
overhead--Ellinor laid her hand in Miss Monro's. "Take me home," she
said softly. And Miss Monro led her home as one leads the blind.

CHAPTER XII.

There are some people who imperceptibly float away from their youth into
middle age, and thence pass into declining life with the soft and gentle
motion of happy years. There are others who are whirled, in spite of
themselves, down dizzy rapids of agony away from their youth at one great
bound, into old age with another sudden shock; and thence into the vast
calm ocean where there are no shore-marks to tell of time.

This last, it seemed, was to be Ellinor's lot. Her youth had gone in a
single night, fifteen years ago, and now she appeared to have become an
elderly woman; very still and hopeless in look and movement, but as sweet
and gentle in speech and smile as ever she had been in her happiest days.
All young people, when they came to know her, loved her dearly, though at
first they might call her dull, and heavy to get on with; and as for
children and old people, her ready watchful sympathy in their joys as
well as their sorrows was an unfailing passage to their hearts. After