ing: "My darling
Mark, I cannot make it real yet."

Softly the night shadows fell around the farmhouse, and in the rooms
below a rather mixed group was assembled--all the _elite_ of the town,
with many of Aunt Betsy's neighbors, and the doctor's patients, who had
come to see their loved physician married, rejoicing in his happiness,
and glad that the mistress of Linwood was not to be a stranger, but the
young girl who had grown up in their midst, and who, by suffering and
sorrow, had been molded into a noble woman, worthy of Dr. Grant. She was
ready now for her second bridal, and she looked like some pure waxen
figure in her dress of white, with no vestige of color in her face, and
her great blue eyes shining with a brilliancy which made them almost
black. Occasionally, as her thoughts leaped backward over a period of
almost six years, a tear trembled on her long eyelashes, but Morris, as
often as he saw it, kissed it away, asking if she were sorry.

"Oh, no, not sorry that I am to be your wife," she answered; "but it is
not possible that I should forget entirely the roughness of the road
which has led me to you."

"They are waiting for you," was said several times ere the parties
waited for were quite ready to go; but everything was done at last, and
slowly down the stairs passed Mark Ray and Helen, Lieutenant Bob and
Bell, with Dr. Grant and Katy, whose face, as she stood again before the
clergyman and spoke her marriage vows, shone with a strange, peaceful
light, which made it seem to those who gazed upon her like the face of
some pure angel.

There was no thought then of that deathbed in Georgetown--no thought of
Greenwood, or the little grave in Silverton, where the crocuses and
hyacinths were blossoming--no thought of anything save the man at her
side, whose voice was so full and earnest, as it made the responses, and
who gently pressed the little hand as he fitted the wedding ring. It was
over at last, and Katy was Morris' wife, blushing now as they called her
Mrs. Grant, and putting up her rosebud lips to be kissed by all who
claimed that privilege. Helen, too, came in for her share of attention,
and the opinion of the guests as to the beauty of the respective brides,
as they were termed, was pretty equally divided; both were beautiful,
and both bore traces of the suffering and suspense which had purified
and made them better.

In heavy, rustling silk, which actually trailed an inch, and cap of real
lace,