To my horror Father S---- concluded to give us the sermon before he did the bride. He was afraid some of his audience would leave. Accordingly there ensued a prayer half an hour long, after which eight verses of a long meter psalm were sung to the tune of Windham. By this time I gave a slight sign to the two old ladies that I would like to move, but they merely shook their two black bonnets at me, telling me, in fierce whispers, that "I mustn't stir in meetin'." Mustn't stir! I wonder how I could stir, squeezed in as I was, unless they chose to let me. So I sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead at a point where the tips of my red shoes were visible, for my feet were sticking straight out. All at once my attention was drawn to a spider on the wall, who was laying a net for a fly, and in watching his maneuvers I forgot the lapse of time, until Father S---- had passed his sixthly and seventhly, and was driving furiously away at the eighthly. By this time the spider had caught the fly, whose cries sounded to me like the waters of the sawmill; the tips of my red shoes looked like the red berries which grew near the mine; the two old ladies at my side were transformed into two tall black walnut trees, while I seemed to be sliding down-hill. At this juncture, one of the old ladies moved away from me a foot at least (she could have done so before had she chosen to), and I was precipitated off from the bench, striking my head on the sharp corner of a seat below. It was a dreadful blow which I received, making the blood gush from my nostrils. My loud screams brought matters to a focus, and the sermon to an end. My grandmother and one of the old ladies took me and the water pail outdoors, where I was literally deluged; at the same time they called me "Poor girl! Poor Mollie! Little dear," etc. But while they were attending to my bumped head Mike and Sally were married, and I didn't see it after all! 'Twas too bad! CHAPTER VII. THE BRIDE. After Sally's marriage there occurred at our house an interval of quiet, enlivened occasionally by letters from Cousin Emma, whose health was not as much improved by her visit to the country as she had at first hoped it would be; consequently she proposed spending the winter south. Meantime, from Boston letters came frequently to Carrie Howard, and as the autumn advanced, things within and about her father's house foretold some unusual event. Two dressmakers were hired from the village, and it was stated, on good authority, that among Carrie's wardrobe was a white satin and an elegantly embroidered merino traveling-dress.