I laughed in his face. "With Dickenson in the next room, Joan Landy sleeping at the foot of the bed, and McMurtrie and myself across the hall, she scarce suffers from lack of attention," I answered, and here he took another course. "Oh," he cried, "think of what I have been through--think of all the bitter days and nights of separation from her! Think how near I came to losing her altogether. Think of the hell of the last two years, and let me stay," he cried, pleadingly; and here the young rascal put his hand on my shoulder. "Father," he cried. The word made me wax in his hand, and I compromised. "Ye can have the rooms next to mine and stay with us to-night," I gave in. "I shall stay till the wedding. I'm going to live here," he returned with a laugh, at which I carried him off to my own rooms, though he went back twice to Nancy's door to say something he'd forgotten. I knew that "forgotten thing." I had gone back often to say it myself. What lover has not? But at the third announcement of his forgettings I lost patience with him. "Danvers Carmichael! Many's the time in our college days that I have thrown your father down and sat on him to keep him from some piece of deviltry, and despite my years, I fear I'll have to treat ye the same way," I cried, upon which we ordered the pipes and some brandy, and sat till the clear day was come, talking the past over, going back and forth over our many mistakes, and making happy plans for the future, with Nancy the centre of every plan. A month later the marriage took place in the little chapel on the Burnside, on a morning so fair and bright and joyous that it seemed made for such a happening. All the old friends were there--Janet and Hugh, Dame Dickenson and Uncle Ben, the girls from the lace-school, Jeanie Henderlin with the Lapraiks, and Huey MacGrath, who cried without intermission from the time he arose in the morning until late in the day, when, overcome by the punch, he was found asleep with his head on the Hall Bible. Jamie played the violin, and as Nancy and I entered the church, Danvers and Billy Deuceace were waiting for us at the railing. It was such a misty, glorified, radiant Nancy I had upon my arm, that Danvers waited no longer after the first look, his impatience being such that he left Billy Deuceace, and, coming down the aisle, took her from me before we were half-way to the altar. Somewhat set back by the suddenness of this, I turned to Sandy, who was near--Sandy, with a face as glad, as overjoyed as my own--who, seeing the position I was left in, joined me, and we walked together to the altar-rail and stood shoulder to shoulder as our two children were united until God do them part.