s, tore
to and fro in vain attempt to keep pace with all the attentions
lavished upon them by the guests as soon as their own desires had been
satisfied. They devoured everything that was offered and attainable
before it was withdrawn, and had no need to ask for more unless in the
matter of storage-room.

Everybody was very happy and very excited, for no such feast had been
in Sark within the memory of the oldest child present. And if Charles
Svendt's Stock-Exchange friends could have seen him--merrily circling
the tables and exhorting already distent youngsters to still greater
and greater exertions; poking them in the ribs to prove, against their
own better judgment, but in accordance with their inclinations, that
there was assuredly still room for more; bidding them "Mangez!
Mangez!" in the one word of French he could recall as specially
applicable at the moment--it is certain they would not have known him.

And Miss Penny, too, looked as if she had never enjoyed herself so
much in her life, and backed him up in all his endeavours right
heartily. And now and again, when Charles Svendt looked at her, he
said to himself, "By Jove, she's as good-looking a girl as I know, and
as clever as they make 'em!"

For there is no greater beautifier in the world than happiness, and
Hennie Penny was completely and quite unusually happy.

To the actual wedding-feast, Graeme had asked the Vicar and his wife,
and such of the neighbours as he had come to know personally,
especially not forgetting his very first friend in the island, whom he
still always called Count Tolstoi, and Mrs. De Carteret. For the rest,
he had given Mrs. Carre carte-blanche to invite whom she deemed well
among her friends, and she had exercised her privilege with judgment
and enjoyment.

The Senechal was there, and the Greffier, and the Prevot and the
members of the Court, _ex officio_, so to speak, and the Wesleyan
minister who was on excellent terms with the Vicar, and the
Post-Master and his jovial white-haired father, who built the boats
and coffins for the community, and had supplied the tables for the
feast; and many more--a right goodly company of stalwart,
weather-browned men and pleasant-faced women, all vastly happy to be
assisting at so unusual an event as an English wedding.

They drank the health of the bride and bridegroom in the special
mulled wine thereto ordained by custom and prepared according to the
laws of the Medes and Persians. And