It took place early in October, on the morning when I commenced this story; and when from my chamber-window I saw the bridal train go by, and heard the pealing of the merry marriage-bells, and the shouting of the children from the mission-school, who strewed the bride’s path from the carriage to the church with flowers, and to whom Godfrey promised a _fête_ upon the lawn, with all the candy and ice-cream they could eat, when he returned from his journey. Never before, nor since, was the church so full as it was that lovely October morning, when the maples were turning scarlet, and the walnut trees were golden in the autumnal sunshine, which fell so softly and warmly, as if in blessing, on the beautiful young bride and the perfectly happy groom. There was a trip to the West as far as Denver, and then one day in November, the bridal pair came back to Hampstead, where the bells rang merrily in honor of their return; and the boys of the mission-school, remembering the promised candy and ice-cream, made a bonfire in the street, and hurrahed lustily for Mr. Godfrey Schuyler, and a tiger, too! They had their _fête_, and candy and cream, and ate it in the November rain; but not until after the grand party at the Hill, which, for elegance and expenditure, far outdid the one given a few years before, when Edith was the bride, and Gertie the little unknown girl, watching the ladies as they came, and wishing that she was one of them. She _was_ one of them now, or rather _the_ one around whom everything else centred, and I never saw a creature so dazzlingly beautiful as she was in her bridal robes, when, with Godfrey at her side, she stood to receive the guests. Everybody who had been bidden was there,—except the Bartons, from whom there came a note of regret, saying that “sudden and severe illness in the family would keep them at home.” “Who can it be? Not Rosamond, for she wrote the regret,” Gertie said; and then, as her eyes met mine, we both thought of Tom, who had never been seen in town since the morning of Gertie’s bridal.