e; and though it was a marriage entirely happy and hopeful,
though all that day and every day I rejoiced both with and for my
brother, still it was rather sad to miss him from our house, to feel
that his boyish days were quite over--that his boyish place would know
him no more.

But of course I had fully overcome, or at least suppressed, this
feeling when, John having brought his wife home, I went to see them in
their own house.

I had seen it once before; it was an old dwelling-house, which my
father bought with the flour-mill, situated in the middle of the town,
the front windows looking on the street, the desolate garden behind
shut in by four brick walls. A most un-bridal-like abode. I feared
they would find it so, even though John had been busy there the last
two months, in early mornings and late evenings, keeping a comical
secrecy over the matter as if he were jealous that any one but himself
should lend an eye, or put a finger, to the dear task of making ready
for his young wife.

They could not be great preparations, I knew, for the third of my
father's business promised but a small income. Yet the gloomy outside
being once passed, the house looked wonderfully bright and clean; the
walls and doors newly-painted and delicately stencilled:--("Master did
all that himself," observed the proud little handmaid, Jenny--Jem
Watkins's sweetheart. I had begged the place for her myself of
Mistress Ursula.) Though only a few rooms were furnished, and that
very simply, almost poorly, all was done with taste and care; the
colours well mingled, the wood-work graceful and good.

They were out gardening, John Halifax and his wife.

Ay, his wife; he was a husband now. They looked so young, both of
them, he kneeling, planting box-edging, she standing by him with her
hand on his shoulder--the hand with the ring on it. He was laughing at
something she had said, thy very laugh of old, David! Neither heard me
come till I stood close by.

"Phineas, welcome, welcome!" He wrung my hand fervently, many times;
so did Ursula, blushing rosy red. They both called me "brother," and
both were as fond and warm as any brother and sister could be.

A few minutes after, Ursula--"Mrs. Halifax," as I said I ought to call
her now--slipped away into the house, and John and I were left
together. He glanced after his wife till she was out of sight, played
with the spade, threw it down, placed his two hands on my shoulders,
and looked