d. He kept his seat better. His was not a buoyant spirit, but there
was, on this occasion, an air of repressed cheerfulness about him such as
I had never before seen him exhibit. I tried to think that it was a
joyous mental rebound from the contemplation of those dark riddles which
trouble humanity, "Why does the hen go across the road," etc.

After a brief pause, Lovell said; "You--you wouldn't mind if I should
sing a little now, now would you, Miss Hungerford?"

I assured him that I should be very glad to have him do so, and he sang,
I remember, all the rest of the way home. At the gate, I thanked him for
the ride and its cheerful vocal accompaniment, and Lovell said; "Do you
like to hear me sing, now? Do you--do you, really, now, Miss Hungerford?"
and turned away with a smile on his face to seek his home by the sea.

But Lovell was not long lonely, for, in less than a week, his father and
mother returned from their visit at Aunt Marcia's and brought to Lovell a
wife.

Mrs. Barlow herself informed me that "it was an awful shock to him, at
first, oh, dreadful! but he'd made up his mind to get married, and he'd
never a' done it in the world, if we hadn't took it into our own hands.
She was a good girl, and we knew it, and Lovell wasn't no more fit to
pick out a wife, anyway, than a chicken, not a bit more fit than a
chicken!"

This girl lived in the same town with Aunt Marcia, and was confidently
recommended by her to Lovell's parents as one who would be likely to make
him a wise and suitable helpmeet, and was, indeed, an uncommonly fair and
wholesome looking individual. She had a mind, too, whose clear, practical
common sense had never been obscured by the idle theories of romance. She
was pure and hearty and substantial. She was neither diffident, nor slow
of speech, nor vacillating. She came, at the invitation of Lovell's
parents, to marry Lovell, and if he had refused, she would have boxed his
ears as a wholesome means of correction, and married him on the spot.

So Lovell's destined wife was brought home to him in the morning, and in
the afternoon of that same day the connubial knot was tied.

Half an hour after the arrival of the bride, it was known throughout the
length and breadth of Wallencamp, to every one, I believe, save Lovell
himself, who was gathering driftwood a mile or two down the beach, that
Lovell was going to be married!

At three o'clock P.M., Brother Mark Barlow was despatched to West Walle