ightful, almost a unique party."

"I did not mean the people in general. I meant Miss Graves. I hope that
blunt speech doesn't offend you."

"Not at all. It is blunt, as you say, but complimentary."

"I don't want to make compliments, Miss Graves, until I have the right.
I want you to come home with me to Edinburgh as my wife."

"This is very sudden and very kind, Mr. Douglas. What do you know of me,
a poor girl working for my living?"

"I know more than you think, and honour you for your work and
independent spirit. I am not going to say I want to take you away from
drudgery, and put you in a better position, because I want you to take
me for myself, if I am worth taking, as a man."

Miss Graves looked upon his manly honest face with eyes as honest, yet
with the merest shade of coquetry in them, and said: "You are worth
taking as a man."

"Then, take me, Marion, and all I have."

"You are not a bit like my picture of a Scotch wooer. You give a poor
girl no chance to hold you back."

"But I don't want to be held back. Shall we report ourselves to the
matrimonial congress?"

"Oh no, not yet, Mr. Douglas; you take wonderful liberties with a new
acquaintance."

Some distance off, Mr. Terry was trying to still the voice of Marjorie.
"I saw him, granpa, I saw Jim with my very own eyes. Oh, these men will
break my heart!"

The first parties to perpetrate matrimony were Ben Toner and Biddy
Sullivan. Mr. Toner, to use his own expressive language, was afraid
Serlizer might round on him if he delayed. Therefore, Father McNaughton
was called in, and, with the aid of Rufus Hill and Barney Sullivan,
groomsmen, Norah Sullivan and Christie Hislop, bridesmaids, and the
Bigglethorpes and Lajeunesses, spectators, the knot was tied. A
honeymoon trip of two days to Toronto, where, in their new clothes and
white cotton gloves, they were the admired of all beholders, rounded off
the affair, and delivered Ben from all fear of the redoubtable Serlizer.
Next Sunday morning there was a great commotion in the Church of St.
Cuthbert's in the Fields. Miss Newcome, gorgeous of attire, supported by
Tryphena in her very best, first marched proudly up the aisle, and then
came the corporal, in full uniform, even to his stock, and adorned with
medals and clasps which told of his warlike achievements, backed by Mr.
Terry in an unostentatious suit of black broadcloth. Shortly before the
close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesi