picture of
him in our minds,--dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his
shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a
man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely
_looks_ again.

Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his
gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he
fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as
still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock;
and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like
the tender glimmering of a sunbeam.

When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon
his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face.

"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John
looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt
and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in
the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the
strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said
again,--

"Perhaps, then, John,--you'll do!"

"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the
church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But
we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her
father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring,
Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in
the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her
pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she
was smiling also and would not cover _that_ up,--gave; and nobody gave
with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning
Marmaduke Wharne.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those
autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every
bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice
to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child.

"Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning.
"I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a
bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a
new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she
had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought
up f