The first week in December Mrs. Jouvenal was to visit her son in Boston. “And really, my child,” she said to Molly, “it is the last wedding in the family I shall be alive to see, and with such an exotic specimen as you have selected, I shall not be sure of a Christian ceremony unless I see it myself.” As her father remained neutral Molly finally yielded, and there was a wedding the first Wednesday in December. X “Do I look tired and dragged out?” asked the bride of an hour as they drove to the train. “You look a little tired, a little flushed, a little ashamed, and tremendously interesting. But you may hold my hand.” “I _am_ ashamed,” and she pushed the upturned hand from her lap and looked out the window. “But, Light of my Soul, you give us away by those imbecile blushes. You might just as well thrust your head out of the carriage and cry, ‘Behold the bride and groom!’” She smiled and leaned back, but still looked out. “That’s the horrid feature of a honeymoon. Everybody knows it and everybody looks at you. Is it too late to go back and undo it?” “What a bloodcurdling thought!” “And it shouldn’t rain on our wedding-day, little Amos.” “Of course it rains. These are the tears of countless lovers who lived before the days of Molly Cabot.” But they left the rain behind them, and farther South, away down in Carolina, they found plenty of sunshine, with green grass and flowers and piny woods. One of their first diversions on reaching this southern country was to go out with a driver and a pair of horses, but the harvest of pleasure was insufficient. “The conversation of a honeymoon,” observed the bridegroom, “is too exalted for other ears. If we talk as the spirit moves us, the coachman, unless in love himself, may collapse from nausea: so let us be merciful and drive ourselves.” Thereupon he secured a buggy with an old gray horse, and from this combination their felicity was much increased. The old horse they called Browser, because of the only thing he would do without being urged; and it required but a single drive to develop his good points, which happened to be the very qualities required. He was dreamy, inattentive, never hasty, and not easily disgusted. His influence was distinctly restful, and his capacity for ignoring a foolish conversation phenomenal. It was decided by his present associates that these virtues were either hereditary, or had been developed to the highest perfection by a long and tender experience. “It’s my opinion,” remarked the groom, “that being so extensively used as a nuptial horse has resulted in his regarding honeymoon foolishness as the usual form of conversation. He probably thinks they talk that way in the courts and on the Stock Exchange.”