ial and dignified dwelling in the Back Bay district. That
something a little out of the ordinary had occurred might have been
guessed from the expression of guilt on the faces of certainly two and
perhaps all three of them, and possibly by the half-embarrassed
alacrity with which the young man escorted his companions down the
steps. No one of them apparently cared even to glance back at the
building they had just left, although its occupancy was as respectable
as its appearance indicated; and each one seemed oddly reluctant to
look at either of the others. It was not until their feet stood
soundly on the flagged sidewalk and the house was well behind them that
the tension snapped and the young man spoke.

"Well, Isabel," said he, "I'm awfully glad I've done it, but that
ceremony was certainly terrific. I believe that to go through such a
thing twice in a span of life would unhinge a mind like mine, whose
hinges creak slightly at times, anyway."

"Very well, Charlie," responded the young lady addressed, smiling. "I
think I can arrange that you shan't have to, for the Hurds are a
notoriously long-lived family."

"But what was so terrific about it, Charlie?" inquired the other young
lady. "It didn't seem to me to differ much from any other marriage
ceremony--and you must have heard dozens at one time or another."

"Oh, I suppose I have," was the reply; "but somehow that man made me
feel like a worm--and a worm that's only by the most extraordinary luck
managed to keep out of jail. I felt like a cheap political hack
accepting the nomination for an important office that I was perfectly
certain I couldn't fill acceptably."

"Well, he did look a trifle severe--not very cheerful," conceded Miss
Maitland.

"Cheerful! He looked about as cheerful as a firm believer in infant
damnation during a bad attack of dyspepsia. But never mind." He
turned to the other girl. "Now that it's all over, how does it feel,
Isabel, to be Mrs. Charles Sylvester Wilkinson?"

"I really don't know," said his wife, considering a moment. "It's the
Sylvester part that seems most unfamiliar. I had honestly almost
forgotten that you had such a decorative middle name. And when I was
told that some one called Charles Sylvester had endowed me with all his
worldly goods, I admit I felt somewhat surprised."

"You would have been even more so if, at the same time, you had been
given a list of them," replied the bridegroom. "I think--to go b