Charles was kept busy for a minute or two, bowing to the guests who had lined themselves up along the driveway to see the couple depart. Dawn glanced shyly at them from her lowered lids, and smiled now and then as she recognized a relative or the kindly face of an old servant. Then the carriage passed out into the street, while her companion sat back very close to her, as if she needed him, and, reaching over, took one of her little cold hands in his strong, warm one. It brought comfort and a thrill of joy. Dawn did not stop to question if he had a right, or if she were doing wrong to allow such familiarity in a stranger, with her, a married woman, and belonging to another man. Such questions had not been brought up for her consideration, though she had a few fixed little principles of her own, sweet and fine and natural. But now she thought only on her great need, and how this strong hand met it. She longed to turn and fling her tired head upon his big, high shoulder and weep out her sorrow. She did not do so, of course, but sat quietly with her hand enfolded in his for a moment, and dared to lift her sweet eyes to his. Then, without any warning, the tears, which had been repressed so long she had forgotten any danger from them, sprang into her eyes. He thought her heart was tender with memories of the home she was leaving, and perhaps, he thought jealously, she was sighing for her false fiancé; but with a lover’s true impulse, and in spite of the village street through which they were passing—although it happily chanced that this was a quiet part—he bent and kissed her. An old lady out among her flowers in the front yard saw them, and nodded to herself: "Bless their dear hearts! May they always be so happy!" and brushed away a tear as she thought of a grave upon a hillside, and a day far agone when her own hopes were put beneath the ground. It was a very short drive. Almost immediately after they had passed the old lady’s house, they turned a corner which brought them into the liveliest part of the town, where people were stretching their necks to watch them, and all was stir and bustle. Only a few rods away stood the inn, with the railroad tracks gleaming in the distance. People were already gathering to watch for the incoming train; and some few to go a journey, though there were not so many travellers in those days. With his kiss upon her lips and a tumult of strange joy in her heart, Dawn was handed from the carriage to the platform. Then her heart stood still with fear again, as she remembered who was to come in the other carriage, soon after them. A part of the company had started on foot for the station, among them Betty Winthrop, and they now came trooping up around the bride and groom, with laughing talk of slippers and rice which they had reserved for the novelty of throwing at a train instead of a carriage.