Why is it that we will breathlessly follow the callowest youth and the
silliest maiden through the most intricate labyrinth of love, never
losing interest until they drop safely into one another's arms, and yet
when two seasoned, mellowed human beings tried by life and found worthy
of the prize of love, dare lift a sentimental lid or sigh a word of
romance, we straightway howl with derision?

It was not until Eleanor stood beside the elderly bride that the affair
ceased to be funny to her. For the first time, she saw something pathetic
and beautiful in the permanence of a love that, starved and thwarted and
blasted by ridicule, could survive the years and make two faded,
middle-aged people like Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester eager to drain the
dregs of life together, when they had been denied the good red wine.

Her eyes wandered from their worn, elated faces to the rows of solemn
figures behind them. Madam, as usual, dominated the scene. Her portrait
gazed in portentously from the hall; her marble bust gleamed from a
distant corner; and she herself, the most resplendent person present, sat
in a chair of state placed like a proscenium-box, and critically observed
the performance.

"If she only _wouldn't_ curl her lip like that!" thought Eleanor
shudderingly; then she remembered her resolution and looked at Quin.

He too was looking preternaturally solemn, and his lips were moving
softly in unison with Mr. Chester's. If Eleanor could have heard those
inaudible responses she would have been startled by the words: "I,
Quinby, take thee, Eleanor." But she only observed that he was lost in a
day-dream, and that she had never seen him look so nice.

Indeed, he was a very different-looking person from the boy that six
months ago had mortified her by his appearance at her Easter party in
"the classiest coat in the market." The propriety of his garments made
her suspect that Uncle Ranny had had a hand in their selection.

"And I like the way he's got his hair slicked back," she thought. "I
wonder how he ever managed it?"

After the wedding breakfast, which was a lavish one, and the departure of
the bride and groom, for California, where they were to make their future
home, Madam summoned Eleanor.

"There's no use in you and Quin Graham staying here with all these
fossils," she said, lowering her voice. "People hate to go home from a
wedding almost as much as they do from a funeral! You two take this and
go to a matinee."