lve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist
in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And
even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open
doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so
divided that it was a festival day all through.

Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in
her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled,
muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her
head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,--since why shouldn't
she, too, have a bit of the fashion?--and tied round with a soft,
simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique,
quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too,
and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We
cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara
herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow
among-them.

Every room in the house was attended.

"There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne,
afterward. "Where _did_ they get such people?--And beautiful serving,"
she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very
soul of living!"

"Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true
always."

Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into
the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the
staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and
landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her
hand in her father's arm.

She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her
dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it.
It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell
like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or
shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you
could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched
cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the
shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose
blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle.
There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her
left hand.

Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side
in his military dress; but I think we all had another