The home atmosphere was all that it should be on the eve of the first wedding in a household where the happiness of one was the joy of all. Maybe I took it too much as a matter of course, then. I value the recollection with something akin to jealous fondness. How, all day long, while the skies streamed without and the wind dashed the water by pailfuls against the windows, mirth and frolic within went on like a peal of joy-bells, and every look, gesture, and word carried to my heart the sweet persuasion that I was not absent from the thoughts of one of them for a moment. So certain were we that nothing could “gang agley”—and this in the teeth of the storm that had abated naught of its fury by nightfall—that when Herbert, who had gone to the station to meet the Charlotte party (including Doctor Hoge, who was returning from his vacation), brought back a rueful countenance and the news that “the flood had washed away a bridge on the Danville Railway and made it impracticable for trains to run for twenty-four hours,” we fell upon him with a hail-storm of laughing reproaches that swept away the pretence of sorrowful sympathy. How could anything go wrong? Not one of us was hoaxed for the fraction of a second. We took for granted, with the like gay confidence, that the tempest would rage itself faint by morning. It was no surprise that the day was so brilliantly clear, so fresh and fragrant, that Doctor Hoge was reminded of “The rose that was newly washed by the shower”— and, after the ceremony, strayed from one to another of the thirty present, asking if any one could tell him who was the author of the line. Which quest, when comparison of notes elicited the fact that ten persons had been catechised, took a place among our family jests. One incident of the journey to Washington stands out in my mind among the thousand and one “coincidences,” falsely so-called, that star or mar every human life, if we will but heed them and their consequences. Mr. Terhune, and Mr. Cardwell, one of the groomsmen, who went as far as Baltimore with us, on his way to speak at a political meeting, had gone to look to the luggage after settling me in the car in Richmond. The air was close, and I tried to raise the window by me. “Allow me!” said a pleasant voice in my ear, and a strong hand reached forward to perform the trifling service.