wn hand, or a little flower
painted by yourself, than the most costly purchased picture or most
elegant piece of silver that you bought, because you thought it was
expected. And if, when you come, you bring no gift but your love and
blessing, I shall feel that that is the richest treasure."

There was no display of presents to a vulgar curiosity, no collection
of duplicate butter-knives or berry-spoons to be secretly disposed of
after the wedding. The gifts were few and not costly, but each told
its own story of personal affection, and therefore really had a
meaning.

This sensible young woman introduced another innovation into her
wedding. She would not listen to the suggestion of a bridal tour. "I
do not want to be stared at and commented on by strangers," she said.
"Let us go to some quiet spot in the mountains or by the sea, and let
us live with each other and with nature." In after years she often
said, "I would not miss from my memory the picture of those happy days
for anything that any trip on railway trains and sojourns at hotels
could give me. We had time and opportunity to learn each other's souls
as we could not have done amid 'the madding crowd;' and we have loved
each other more truly, I know, because in those early wedded days we
sat with Nature and Nature's God in the true companionship which such
solitude alone can bring."

I never see the parade of a fashionable wedding that I am not reminded
of her and of a sad contrast to her experience, when two young people
were married amid a blaze of light, a rain of flowers, and under the
curious eyes of hundreds of strangers took their wedding tour, while
the papers glowingly described the dress and beauty of the bride, the
necktie and the trousers of the groom, and pictures of the two were
labeled "The Happy Couple." In two years the bride came home to her
parents wrecked in health and broken in heart.

There is a beauty in a golden wedding that truly celebrates a happy
union of half a century. But when life is all untried, when perhaps
the two young people know nothing of what is before them, it may be
are but little acquainted with each other, and have mistaken the
thrill of passion for the steady exaltation of love, then it would
seem wiser to make the occasion one of most solemn import, free from
glitter and show, and full of that deep meaning which makes the heart
stand still in reverence for life's deepest mysteries.

O, gallant young groom, it