plorer discovered
with a quick-sinking heart and confidence that she was alone and hungry
and very far from home. She was treading close upon the verge of tears
when her path debouched upon the central square of Camelot. And
straightway she forgot her doubts and puzzlements, her hunger and her
increasing weariness, for she had found "The Court." Across a fair green
plaisance, all seemly beset with flower and shrub, the wide doors of a
church stood open. Tall palaces were all about, and in every window, on
every step, on the green benches which dotted the plaisance, on every
possible elevation or post of observation, the good folk of Camelot
stood or hung or even fought, to watch the procession of beauty and
chivalry as it came foaming down the steps, broke into eddies, and
disappeared among the thronging carriages. Mary found it quite easy to
identify the illustrious personages in the procession when once she had
realized that they would, of course, not be in armor on a summer's
afternoon, and at what even, to her inexperienced eyes, was manifestly a
wedding.

First to emerge was a group of the younger knights, frock-coated,
silk-hatted, pale gray of waistcoat and gloves, white and effulgent of
_boutonniere_. Excitement, almost riot, resulted among the
much-caparisoned horses, the much-favored coachmen, and the
much-beribboned equipages of state. But the noise increased to clamor
and eagerness to violence when an ethereal figure in floating tulle and
clinging lace was led out into the afternoon light by a more resplendent
edition of black-coated, gray-trousered knighthood.

The next wave was all of pink chiffon and nodding plumes. The first
wave, after trickling about the carriages and the coachmen, receded up
the steps again to be lost and mingled in the third, and then both swept
down to the carriages again and were absorbed. Then the steady tide of
departing royalty set in. Then horses plunged, elderly knights fussed,
court ladies commented upon the heat, the bride, the presents, or their
neighbors. Then the bride's father mopped his brow and the bridegroom's
mother wept a little. Then there was much shaking or waving of hands or
of handkerchiefs. Then the bridal carriage began to move, the bride
began to smile, and rice and flowers and confetti and good wishes and
slippers filled the air. Then other carriages followed, then the good
folk of Camelot followed, an aged man closed the wide church doors, and
the square