A calm and cloudless evening followed the exciting morning which had been experienced in L. The fairest moon of May shone above the ruined meeting-house, which lay in blackened rubbish upon the ground. Her soft light lit up the white dwellings and shrubbery of the village with a holy beauty, until they stood out in bold relief against the surrounding hills, which, in like manner, stood out in similar relief against a sky sparkling with myriads of stars. The herbage sent up its sweetest fragrance, and the air was balmy and delicious. In short, the earth and sky seemed wedded in harmony, and formed a fitting emblem of the marriage-tie about to be celebrated. The laws regulating wedlock in the colonies were suited to the infant state of society, and threw but few obstacles in the way of the connection. Agreeably with this banishment of all unnecessary form, it was not usual to celebrate their nuptials in places of public worship. This was peculiarly fortunate in the case of Lucy Ellet, whose marriage having been fixed for this evening, would have had to be deferred, had it been the expectation to celebrate it in the village meeting-house. The arrangements, however, had been made for the performance of the ceremony in the house of her uncle, and the unpleasant affair of the morning was not permitted to retard a matter of such vitality. Lucy’s nerves, too, being of that firm kind which no shock could shatter or disturb beyond the passing moment, there was no necessity for deferring the period. The hospitalities of her uncle’s house were thrown open to the villagers—not, it is true, by great displays, such as grace nuptial feasts at the present day, but by means of that unpretending welcome and abundance of cheer, which appeals at once to the heart and appetite of the guest. The best parlor was graced with vases of the freshest spring flowers, and tasteful green branches interwoven with white roses—the whole answering to the idea of a fitting place for a marriage scene.