e given in!

The guests had risen and were stretching their necks for the first
vision of her. The chaplet of costly blossoms sat upon her brow and
bound her wedding veil floating mistily behind, but the lovely head was
bowed, not lifted proudly as a bride's should be, and the little white
glove that rested on the arm of the large florid cousin trembled
visibly. The cousin was almost unknown until a few hours before. His
importance overpowered her. She drooped her eyes and tried not to wish
for the quiet, gray-haired cousin of her own mother. It was so strange
for him to have failed her at the last moment, when he had promised long
ago to let nothing hinder him from giving her away if she should ever be
married. His telegram, "Unavoidably detained," had been received but an
hour before. He seemed the only one of her kind, and now she was all
alone. All the rest were like enemies, although they professed deep
concern for her welfare; for they were leagued together against all her
dearest wishes, until she had grown weary in the combat.

She gave a frightened glance behind as if some intangible thing were
following her. Was it a hounding dread that after all she would not be
free after marriage?

With measured tread she passed the long white-ribboned way, under arches
that she never noticed, through a sea of faces that she never saw, to
the altar smothered in flowers and tropical ferns. It seemed
interminable. Would it never end? They paused at last, and she lifted
frightened eyes to the florid cousin, and then to the face of her
bridegroom!

It was a breathless moment, and but for the deep tones of the organ now
hushing for the ceremony, one of almost audible silence. No lovelier
bride had trod those aisles in many a long year; so exquisite, so
small, so young--and so exceeding rich! The guests were entranced, and
every eye was greedily upon her as the white-robed minister advanced
with his open book.

"Beloved, we are met together to-night to join this man----!"

At that word they saw the bride suddenly, softly sink before them, a
little white heap at the altar, with the white face turned upward, the
white eyelids closed, the long dark lashes sweeping the pretty cheek,
the wedding veil trailing mistily about her down the aisle, and her big
bouquet of white roses and maiden-hair ferns clasped listlessly in the
white-gloved hands.

For a moment no one stirred, so sudden, so unexpected it was. It all
seemed an ast