oud hurrahs, and one energetic voice
cried out:

"One cheer more for Master Guy!"

Guy's mother turned delighted--her eyes shining with proud tears.

"John--thank them; tell them that Guy will thank them himself
to-morrow."

The master thanked them, but either he did not explain--or the honest
rude voices drowned all mention of the latter fact--that Guy would be
home to-morrow.

All this while, and at the marriage-breakfast likewise, Mr. Halifax
kept the same calm demeanour. Once only, when the rest were all
gathered round the bride and bridegroom, he said to me:

"Phineas, is it done?"

"What is done?" asked Ursula, suddenly passing.

"A letter I asked him to write for me this morning."

Now I had all my life been proud of John's face--that it was a safe
face to trust in--that it could not, or if it could, it would not,
boast that stony calm under which some men are so proud of disguising
themselves and their emotions from those nearest and dearest to them.
If he were sad, we knew it; if he were happy, we knew it too. It was
his principle, that nothing but the strongest motive should make a man
stoop to even the smallest hypocrisy.

Therefore, hearing him thus speak to his wife, I was struck with great
alarm. Mrs. Halifax herself seemed uneasy.

"A business letter, I suppose?"

"Partly on business. I will tell you all about it this evening."

She looked re-assured. "Just as you like; you know I am not curious."
But passing on, she turned back. "John, if it was anything important
to be done--anything that I ought to know at once, you would not keep
me in ignorance?"

"No--my dearest! No!"

Then what had happened must be something in which no help availed;
something altogether past and irremediable; something which he rightly
wished to keep concealed, for a few hours at least, from his other
children, so as not to mar the happiness of this day, of which there
could be no second, this crowning day of their lives--this wedding-day
of Edwin and Louise.

So, he sat at the marriage-table; he drank the marriage-health; he gave
them both a marriage-blessing. Finally, he sent them away, smiling and
sorrowful--as is the bounden duty of young married couples to
depart--Edwin pausing even on the carriage-step to embrace his mother
with especial tenderness, and whisper her to "give his love to Guy."

"It reminds one of Guy's leaving," said the mother, hastily brushing
back the tears that would spring a