air
on the right, and he on the left, with the central aisle between them.
Next came two elderly ladies, in dark silk with long trains, with
uncovered and ornamented hair, and white shoulder-shawls of silk or
wool, each with a gentleman; and they were seated to the right and
left respectively. The bride's eldest married sister came next, in a
splendid robe of blue satin, with a long train, looking very young and
_distingue_. She and her husband filed to the right and left, as the
others had done. The second married sister of the bride followed, in a
similar dress of pink satin; and her very handsome husband, in his
full military suit, was a decided addition to the courtly-looking
assemblage. These five ladies filled the front row of chairs on one
side, as did the gentlemen accompanying them on the other side. Eight
other ladies, all in full dress,--one wearing an ermine
cape,--followed, each with a gentleman; and these were seated in the
second row.

When for a few brief moments I first caught sight of all this
elegance, I felt as though I were in a dream; then came a rush of
emotion, because I loved the fair young bride, and was touched at the
thought of the solemn place in which she stood,--forsaking home and
friends and native land to go to what seems to these home-dwelling
Germans a far, strange country, all for the sake of a young man whom a
year ago she had never seen. I was as sorry for the mother, too, as I
could be for one so handsome and so dignified. How fast one feels and
thinks in such a time! Before the hush which followed the procession
and the temporary change while all were finding their appropriate
seats, the feeling of sympathy had given place to one of stimulated
imagination, and this dim old soldiers' church, with the majestic
music filling all its spaces, seemed merely the setting for some scene
at a royal court in the olden time, where beauty and brilliance and
grandeur were a matter of course.

The music ceased, all present rose, while Pastor Frommel read a brief
service from the book, and said "Amen." Then we sat down again, and
the pastor preached the wedding sermon, which we were told is a matter
of course at a German marriage. The sermon over, the bride and groom
stood up before him, and he looked down with a fatherly glance upon
the bride whom he took into his own house to prepare for confirmation
only a few short years ago, and whom he is now to send with his
marriage benediction across