“I take thee, Ralph, to be my lawful, wedded husband, to love and to serve, to comfort and cherish, to honor and keep, so long as we both shall live; and thereto, God helping, I plight thee my troth.” After the last words had died tremblingly away on Mildred’s lips, the clergyman at a sign from her lifted his voice in prayer, while Alice kneeled sobbing by the bedside, and over my eyes there came a mist. My senses reeled, and I remember no more. Weeks afterward Alice told me that Mr. Lightfoot had gone away with a fatherly benediction, and a purse the richer by a thousand dollars for the marriage service which he did not perform. The days went by, and I knew but little. The tall, white screen shut out everything from me. I was too weak to ask about Mildred, but I knew that she had not left us. Surely God had been merciful. She was still to live and love and bless the world. At last came a day,—it was the first day of September, I recall,—the very day when we had planned to reach San Francisco on our return from the Alaskan trip which we had contemplated; the screen was removed, and Mildred and Ralph, still pale and wan, but with the glow of returning health lighting up their happy faces, sat beside me and whispered words of farewell. “Oh, Mildred, you did not die, you are alive,” I sobbed weakly, too happy to keep the tears back. “Yes, darling,” she said, “for it was love that saved me. I had something to live for, and I fought hard. Now I am to leave you for a while. My husband and I” (how proudly she said that), “my husband and I are going away.” “Her aunt Madison has kindly offered us her beautiful, private car, and we are going away for a long rest before we come back to our work,” said Ralph innocently, and I saw that for some reason Mildred had still kept him ignorant of the fact that he had married a great heiress instead of a poor teacher. “This is to be our honey-moon, you know,” he added, looking at her with the lovelight shining in his eyes. “We are going quietly. No one but Jim is to know of it, for the doctor says we must spare ourselves the excitement of the good-byes which would have to be said if the people knew we were going. The men have been clamoring for a month to see me, and it has been hard for me to keep quiet and not let them come.” “How would you feel,” asked his wife in a careless tone, “if you had married a rich woman, who would ask you to go away and never come back to work here again?” and Mildred, who was holding my hand, gave it a mischievous little squeeze as she looked demurely out of the window and awaited his reply. “I don’t know. I am afraid I could not quite forgive her unless she gave me better work to do elsewhere. I could not be idle, you know, even with you, darling,” he answered, smiling at the bright face beside him.