Just before three o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Newton went together to the parlor and sat down by a small table covered with a white cloth, on which there lay a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. A few minutes later David and Robert came in, and stood talking to them, until the door opened and Theodora and Mercedes entered. Then Mr. Newton stood up, and Robert and Theodora stood before him, and renewed their marriage vows in the most solemn and simple manner. There were no decorations, no music, no attendants, no company, nothing but a prayer, and the old, old ritual of a thousand years. But after it Mr. Newton told them in a few sentences, how supremely important love is to the soul. "It perishes without love," he said. "To the soul love is blessing, love is salvation, love is the guardian angel, and without love the centrifugal law easily overpowers and sweeps it far out from its divine source, towards the cold frontiers of the material and the manifold." Then there was a tender and cheerful good-bye, and Robert and Theodora went to their new home. They wandered hand in hand through all its beautiful rooms, and through the scented walks of its fair garden, and Robert said: "It is a palace in Paradise, darling." "And I am so happy! So proud, and so happy, dear Robert!" she answered. After a perfect dinner at their own table, Robert went to his wife's parlor to smoke his cigar, and then he told her all about his last unhappy visit to his family, and his native land. It was the necessary minor note in their joyful wedding song, but it soon returned to its triumphant dominant, since they must needs rejoice in that loving Power which had so surely "tempered all things well," "_Had worked their pleasure out of pain, And out of ruin golden gain._" And as they talked in the splendid room, with its sweet odors and dim light, their voices grew lower, and they were content to whisper each other's names, and fall into sweet silences, thrilled with such soft stir, as angels in their cloud-girt wayfarings know, when they "feel the breath of kindred plumes." And thus, "_The tumult of the time disconsolate, To inarticulate murmurs died away._" OTHER BOOKS BY MRS. BARR JAN VEDDER'S WIFE THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON REMEMBER THE ALAMO FRIEND OLIVIA A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES THE LION'S WHELP THE BLACK SHILLING THE BELLE OF BOWLING GREEN CECILIA'S LOVERS THE HEART OF JESSY LAURIE THE STRAWBERRY HANDKERCHIEF THE HANDS OF COMPULSION THE HOUSE ON CHERRY STREET ETC.