and his
hatchet-faced son, the Adamses all starched for the occasion, Daniel
Sands, a widower pro tem. with a broadening interest in school teachers,
Mrs. Herdicker, the ladies' hatter, classifying the Satterthwaites and
the Van Dorns according to the millinery of their womenkind; Morty Sands
wearing the first white silk vest exhibited in Harvey and making violent
eyes at a daughter of the railroad aristocracy--either a general
manager's daughter or a general superintendent's, and for the life of
her Mrs. Nesbit couldn't say; for she had not the highest opinion in the
world of the railroad aristocracy, but took them, president, first,
second and third vice, general managers, ticket and passenger agents,
and superintendents, as a sort of social job-lot because they came in
private cars, and the Doctor desired them, to add to his trophies of the
occasion,--Henry Fenn, wearing soberly the suit in which he appeared
when he rode the skyrocket, and forming part of the bridal chorus,
stationed in the cigar-box of a sewing-room on the second floor to sing,
"Oh, Day So Dear," as the happy couple came down the stairs--the old
families of Harvey were all invited to the wedding. And the old and the
new and most of the intermediary families of no particular caste or
standing, came to the reception after the ceremony. But because she had
the best voice in town, Margaret Mueller sang "Oh, Promise Me," in a
remote bedroom--to give the effect of distant music, low and sweet, and
after that song was over, and after Henry Fenn's great pride had been
fairly sated, Margaret Mueller mingled with the guests and knew more of
the names and stations of the visiting nobility from the state house and
railroad offices than any other person present. And such is the
perversity of the male sex that there were more "by Georges," and more
"Look--look, looks," and more faint whistles, and more "Tch--tch tchs,"
and more nudging and pointing among the men when Margaret appeared than
when the bride herself, pink and white and beautiful, came down the
stairs. Even the eyes of the groom, as he stood beside the bride, tall,
youthful, strong, and handsome as a man may dare to be and earn an
honest living, even his eyes sometimes found themselves straying toward
the figure and face of the beautiful girl whom he had scarcely noticed
while she worked in the court house. But this may be said for the groom,
that when his eyes did wander, he pulled them back with an al