or is coming to be my best
man."

The two sisters, dressed in the deepest mourning, and pale with long
sorrow and loneliness, looked wholly unfit for festive scenes; and as
soon as they heard of this new distress--the loss of their father's
dearest friend, and their own beloved hero--they left the room, to have
a good cry together, while their brother entertained the visitors. "It
can't be done now," Mr. Shargeloes confessed; "and after all, Eliza is
the proper person. I must leave that to her, but nothing else that I can
think of. There can't be much harm in my letting her do that."

It was done by a gentleman after all, for the worthy Rector did it. The
bride would liefer have dispensed with bridesmaids so much fairer than
herself, and although unable to advance that reason, found fifty others
against asking them. But her father had set his mind upon it, and
together with his wife so pressed the matter that Faith and Dolly, much
against their will, consented to come out of mourning for a day, but not
into gay habiliments.

The bride was attired wonderfully, stunningly, carnageously--as Johnny,
just gifted with his commission, and thereby with much slang, described
her; and in truth she carried her bunting well, as Captain Stubbard told
his wife, and Captain Tugwell confirmed it. But the eyes of everybody
with half an eye followed the two forms in silver-grey. That was the
nearest approach to brightness those lovers of their father allowed
themselves, within five months of his tragic death; though if the old
Admiral could have looked down from the main-top, probably he would have
shouted, "No flags at half-mast for me, my pets!"

Two young men with melancholy glances followed these fair bridesmaids,
being tantalized by these nuptial rites, because they knew no better.
One of them hoped that his time would come, when he had pushed his great
discovery; and if the art of photography had been known, his face would
have been his fortune. For he bore at the very top of it the seal and
stamp of his patent--the manifest impact of a bullet, diffracted by the
power of Pong. The roots of his hair--the terminus of blushes, according
to all good novelists--had served an even more useful purpose, by
enabling him to blush again. Strengthened by Pong, they had defied the
lead, and deflected it into a shallow channel, already beginning to
be overgrown by the aid of that same potent drug. Erle Twemlow looked
little the worse for his