was a little feller? and there was no
'casion for missus to worry an' fret as if she was leavin' him to a
stranger."

It was not for want of a cordial invitation to both the Oaks and Ion that
Harry was left behind; but business required his presence at home, and he
could only promise himself a week's holiday at the time of the wedding.

CHAPTER TWELFTH

"Bring flowers, fresh flowers for the bride to wear;
They were born to blush in her shining hair;
She's leaving the home of her childhood's mirth;
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth;
Her place is now by another's side;
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride."
--MRS. HEMANS.

A fair October day is waning, and as the shadows deepen and the stars
shine out here and there in the darkening sky, the grounds at the Oaks
glitter with colored lamps, swinging from the branches of the trees that
shade the long green alleys, and dependent from arches wreathed with
flowers. In doors and out everything wears a festive look; almost the
whole house is thrown open to the guests who will presently come thronging
to it from nearly every plantation for miles around.

The grand wedding has been talked of, prepared for, and looked forward to
for months past, and few, if any, favored with an invitation, will
willingly stay away.

The spacious entrance hall is brilliantly lighted, and on either hand
wide-open doors give admission to long suites of richly, tastefully
furnished rooms, beautiful with rare statuary, paintings, articles of
vertu, and flowers scattered everywhere, in bouquets, wreaths, festoons,
filling the air with their delicious fragrance.

These apartments, waiting for the guests, are almost entirely deserted;
but in Elsie's dressing-room a bevy of gay young girls, in white tarletan
and with flowers in their elaborately dressed hair, are laughing and
chatting merrily, and now and then offering a suggestion to Aunt Chloe and
Dinah, whose busy hands are arranging their young mistress for her bridal.

"Lovely!" "Charming!" "Perfect!" the girls exclaim in delighted, admiring
chorus, as the tirewomen having completed their labors, Elsie stands
before them in a dress of the richest white satin, with an overskirt of
point lace, a veil of the same, enveloping her slender figure like an airy
cloud, or morning mist, reaching from the freshly gathered orange blossoms
wreathed in t