ony.
It took place in a parlor of the hotel, according to the law of New
York, which facilitates marriage so greatly in all respects that it is
strange any one in the State should remain single. He had then a luxury
of choice between attaching himself to the bridal couple as far as Ohio
on his journey home to Michigan, or to Claxon who was going to take the
boat for Boston the next day on his way to Middlemount. He decided
for Claxon, since he could then see Mrs. Lander's lawyer at once, and
arrange with him for getting out of the vice-consul's hands the money
which he was holding for an authoritative demand. He accepted without
open reproach the handsome fee which the elder Hinkle gave him for his
services, and even went so far as to say, "If your son should ever be
blest with a return to health, he has got a helpmeet such as there are
very few of." He then admonished the young couple, in whatever trials
life should have in store for them, to be resigned, and always to be
prepared for the worst. When he came later to take leave of them, he was
apparently not equal to the task of fitly acknowledging the return which
Hinkle made him of all the money remaining to Clementina out of the sum
last given her by Mrs. Lander, but he hid any disappointment he might
have suffered, and with a brief, "Thank you," put it in his pocket.

Hinkle told Clementina of the apathetic behavior of Mr. Orson; he added
with a laugh like his old self, "It's the best that he doesn't seem
prepared for."

"Yes," she assented. "He wasn't very chee'ful. But I presume that he
meant well. It must be a trial for him to find out that Mrs. Landa
wasn't rich, after all."

It was apparently never a trial to her. She went to Ohio with her
husband and took up her life on the farm, where it was wisely judged
that he had the best chance of working out of the wreck of his health
and strength. There was often the promise and always the hope of this,
and their love knew no doubt of the future. Her sisters-in-law delighted
in all her strangeness and difference, while they petted her as
something not to be separated from him in their petting of their
brother; to his mother she was the darling which her youngest had never
ceased to be; Clementina once went so far as to say to him that if she
was ever anything she would like to be a Moravian.

The question of religion was always related in their minds to the
question of Gregory, to whom they did justice in their tr