Nuttie bound over her cousins to give her a full account of the wedding, and both of them wrote to her. Blanche's letter recorded sundry scattered particulars,--as to how well the rowan-trimmed tulle dresses looked--how every one was packed into the carriages for the long drive--how there had been a triumphal arch erected over the Bluepost Bridge itself, and Annaple nearly choked with laughing at the appropriateness--how, to her delight, a shower began, and the procession out of the church actually cried out for umbrellas--how papa, when performing the ceremony, could not recollect that the bride's proper name was Annabella, and would dictate it as Anna-Maria, Sir John correcting him each time sotto voce--how Basil and little Hilda Delmar walked together and 'looked like a couple of ducks,' which, it was to be hoped, was to be taken metaphorically--how dreadfully hard the ice on the wedding-cake was, so that when Annaple tried to cut it the knife slipped and a little white dove flew away and hit May, which everyone said was a grand omen that she would be the next bride, while of course Annaple was perfectly helpless with mirth. Every one said it was the merriest wedding ever seen, for the bride's only tears were those of laughter. What Nuttie really cared for most came just at the end, and not much of that. 'Your Mr. Dutton is just gone. He got on famously with Hugh Condamine, and I forgot to tell you that he has given Mark such a jolly present, a lovely silver coffee-pot, just the one thing they wanted, and Lady Delmar said he didn't look near so like a tradesman as she expected. I see May is writing too, but I don't know what you will get out of her, as Hugh Condamine came for the day.' Nuttie, however, had more hopes from May. Her letter certainly was fuller of interest, if shorter. 'My Dear Nuttie--Blanche has no doubt told you all the externals. I suppose there never was a brighter wedding, for as Annaple keeps her mother with her, there was no real rending asunder of ties. Indeed I almost wish her excitement did not always show itself in laughing, for it prevents people from understanding how much there is in her. (Plainly Hugh Condamine had been rather scandalised by the 'giggling Scotch girl.')