to approved custom,
during the marriage ceremony.

I remember now the bustle of the day,--the confused whirl of white
gloves, kisses, bridemaids, and bridecakes, the losing of trunk-keys and
breaking of lacings, the tears of mamma--God bless her!--and the jokes
of irreverent Christopher, who could, for the life of him, see nothing
so very dismal in the whole phantasmagoria, and only wished he were as
well off himself.

And so Emmy was wheeled away from us on the bridal tour, when her
letters came back to us almost every day, just like herself, merry,
frisky little bits of scratches,--as full of little nonsense-beads as a
glass of Champagne, and all ending with telling us how perfect he was,
and how good, and how well he took care of her, and how happy, etc.,
etc.

Then came letters from her new home. His house was not yet built; but
while it was building, they were to live with his mother, who was "such
a good woman," and his sisters, who were also "such nice women."

But somehow, after this, a change came over Emmy's letters. They grew
shorter; they seemed measured in their words; and in place of sparkling
nonsense and bubbling outbursts of glee, came anxiously worded praises
of her situation and surroundings, evidently written for the sake of
arguing herself into the belief that she was extremely happy.

John, of course, was not as much with her now: he had his business to
attend to, which took him away all day, and at night he was very tired.
Still he was very good and thoughtful of her, and how thankful she ought
to be! And his mother was very good indeed, and did all for her that she
could reasonably expect,--of course she could not be like her own mamma;
and Mary and Jane were very kind,--"in their way," she wrote, but
scratched it out, and wrote over it, "very kind indeed." They were the
best people in the world,--a great deal better than she was; and she
should try to learn a great deal from them.

"Poor little Em!" I said to myself, "I am afraid these very nice people
are slowly freezing and starving her." And so, as I was going up into
the mountains for a summer tour, I thought I would accept some of John's
many invitations and stop a day or two with them on my way, and see how
matters stood. John had been known among us in college as a taciturn
fellow, but good as gold. I had gained his friendship by a regular
siege, carrying parallel after parallel, till, when I came into the fort
at last, I found th