oked gay on the outside
anyway.

At last I heard a fluttering of silk outside my room, and a running
stream of chatter going down the stairs, followed by the banging of
carriage doors, and then my father's deep voice, saying:

"Bride ready? Good! Time to go, I guess."

He alone had made no effort to dress himself up, for he was still
wearing his every-day serge and his usual heavy boots. There was not
even a flower in his button-hole.

We did not speak very much on our way to church, but I found a certain
comfort in his big warm presence as we sat together in the carriage with
the windows shut, for the rising storm was beginning to frighten me.

"It will be nothing," said my father. "Just a puff of wind and a slant
of rain maybe."

The little church was thronged with people. Even the galleries were full
of the children from the village school. There was a twittering overhead
like that of young birds in a tree, and as I walked up the nave on my
father's arm I could not help but hear over the sound of the organ the
whispered words of the people in the pews on either side of us.

"Dear heart alive, the straight like her mother she is, bless her!"

"Goodness yes, it's the poor misfortunate mother come to life again."

"Deed, but the daughter's in luck, though."

Lord Raa was waiting for me by the communion rail. He looked yet more
nervous than in the morning, and, though he was trying to bear himself
with his usual composure, there was (or I thought there was) a certain
expression of fear in his face which I had never seen before.

His friend and witness, Mr. Eastcliff, wearing a carnation button-hole,
was by his side, and his aunt, Lady Margaret, carrying a sheaf of
beautiful white flowers, was standing near.

My own witnesses and bridesmaids, Betsy Beauty and Nessy MacLeod, in
large hats, with soaring black feathers, were behind me. I could hear
the rustle of their rose-coloured skirts and the indistinct buzz of
their whispered conversation, as well as the more audible reproofs of
Aunt Bridget, who in a crinkly black silk dress and a bonnet like a half
moon, was telling them to be silent and to look placid.

At the next moment I was conscious that a bell had been rung in the
chancel; that the organ had stopped; that the coughing and hemming in
the church had ceased; that somebody was saying "Stand here, my lord";
that Lord Raa, with a nervous laugh, was asking "Here?" and taking a
place by my side; that the