if it were a war-banner, and held on tenaciously to a cork-screw.

The pretty face of Elise was also there, assisting to spread moral
sunshine on the party and fair cloths on all the tables. A close
observer might have noted that wherever Elise shone there Le Rue took
occasion to sun himself!

Deep in the mysterious regions of the back-kitchen--which bore as much
resemblance to civilised back-kitchens as an English forest does to the
"back-woods"--Mister Rooney might have been seen, much dirtier than
other people owing to the nature of his culinary occupations and his
disregard of appearances. A huge favour, once white, but now dirty,
decorated the Irishman's broad chest. Similar favours (not dirty) were
pinned to the breasts of all the guests, giving unmistakable evidence
that the occasion was a wedding.

"Hooroo! ye descendant of an expatriated frog," cried Rooney, staggering
under the weight of an enormous pot, "come here, won't 'ee, an' lind a
hand. Wan would think it was yer own weddin' was goin' on. Here, slew
round the crane, ye excitable cratur."

"Preehaps mes own veddin' vill foller ver' quick," said Le Rue, with a
sly glance at Elise, as he assisted Rooney to suspend the big pot on its
appropriate hook.

"Troth then. I can't compliment the taste o' the poor girl as takes
'ee," replied Rooney, with a still slyer glance at Elise.

The girl referred to remarked that no girl in her senses would accept
either of them as a gift, and went off tossing her head.

Just then a cheer was heard in the lobby, and Elise, Le Rue, and Rooney
rushed out in time to see Flora McLeod like an April day--all smiles and
tears--handed into a gig; she was much dishevelled by reason of the
various huggings she had undergone from sundry bridesmaids and
sympathetic female friends, chief among whom was a certain Mrs Crowder,
who in virtue of her affection for the McLeod family, her age, and her
deafness, had constituted herself a compound of mother and grandmamma to
Flora. The gig was fitted to hold only two. When Flora was seated,
Reginald Redding--also somewhat dishevelled owing to the hearty, not to
say violent, congratulations of his male friends--jumped in, seized the
reins and cracked his whip. The horse being a young and spirited
animal, performed a series of demivolts which caused all the ladies to
scream, threw the gig into convulsions, and old Mrs Crowder almost into
fits. Thereafter it shot away like an arrow,