in the scent that would cling round one
particular evening dress. Five gentlemen, all with cigars, and papa as
bad as any of them! There had never been such an extraordinary
experience in her life.

And then the Tathams, too, withdrew, and the mother and daughter stood
alone on their own hearth. Oh, so much, so much as there was to say! but
how were they to say it?--the last moment, which was so precious and so
intolerable--the moment that would never come again.

"You were a long time with Philip, Elinor, in the garden. I think all
your old friends ---- the last night."

"I wanted to say something to him, mamma, that I had never had the
courage to say."

Mrs. Dennistoun had been looking dully into the dim mirror over the
mantelpiece. She turned half round to her daughter with an inquiring
look.

"Oh, mamma, I wanted to say to him that we must be good! We're so happy.
God is so kind to us; and you--if you suppose I don't think of you! It
was to say to him--building our house upon all this, God's mercy and
your loss, and all--that we are doubly, doubly bound to serve--and to
love--and to be good people before God; and like you, mother, like you!"

"My darling!" Mrs. Dennistoun said. And that was all. She asked no
questions as to how it was to be done, or what he replied. Elinor had
broken down hysterically, and sobbed out the words one at a time, as
they would come through the choking in her throat. Needless to say that
she ended in her mother's arms, her head upon the bosom which had nursed
her, her slight weight dependent upon the supporter and protector of
all her life.

That was the last evening. There remained the last morning to come; and
after that--what? The great sea of an unknown life, a new pilot, and a
ship untried.

CHAPTER XVI.

And now the last morning had come.

The morning of a wedding-day is a flying and precarious moment which
seems at once as if it never would end, and as if it were a hurried
preliminary interval in which the necessary preparations never could be
done. Elinor was not allowed to come down-stairs to help, as she felt it
would be natural to do. It was Mary Tatham who arranged the flowers on
the table, and helped Dennistoun to superintend everything. All the
women in the house, though they were so busy, were devoted at every
spare moment to the service of Elinor. They brought her simple breakfast
up-stairs, one maid carrying the tray and another the teapot, that each