nce, musing with full hearts over this crowning of their long
deferred hopes, and not without prayer that the same protecting Hand
might guide them, as they should walk together through life.

By-and-by Mary disappeared. She would perhaps have preferred her
ordinary dress--but the bridal white seemed to her to be due both to
Louis and to the solemn rite and mystery; and when the time came, she
met him, in her plain white muslin and long veil, confined by a few
sprays of real orange flowers, beneath which her calmly noble face was
seen, simple and collected as ever, forgetting in her earnestness all
adjuncts that might have been embarrassing or distressing.

The large hall was darkening with twilight, and the flowers and
branches that decked it showed gracefully in the subdued light. Prayer
and praise had lately echoed there, and Louis and Mary could feel that
He was with them who blessed the pair at Cana, far distant as they were
from their own church--their own home. Yes, the Church, their mother,
their home, was with them in her sacred ritual and her choice
blessings, and their consciences were free from self-will, or
self-pleasing, such as would have put far from them the precious gifts
promised in the name of their Lord.

When it was over, and they first raised their eyes to one another's
faces, each beheld in the other a look of entire thankful content, not
the less perfect because it was grave and peaceful.

'I think mamma would be quite happy,' said Mary.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MARVEL OF PERU.

Turn, Angelina, ever dear,
My charmer, turn to see
Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here,
Restored to love and thee,
GOLDSMITH.

Lord Ormersfield sat alone in the library, where the fire burnt more
for the sake of cheerfulness than of warmth. His eyes were weary with
reading, and, taking off his spectacles, he turned his chair away from
the table, and sat gazing into the fire, giving audience to dreamy
thoughts.

He missed the sunny face ever prompt to watch his moods, and find or
make time for the cheerful word or desultory chat which often broke and
refreshed drier occupation. He remembered when he had hardly tolerated
the glass of flowers, the scraps of drawing, the unbusinesslike books
at his son's end of the table, but the room looked dull without them
now, and he was ready to own the value of the grace and finish of life,
hindering the daily task from absor