"But don't fancy I should forgive you the debt." "I should hope not," Will said, unconsciously drawing himself up. "I didn't mean to beg a living." "That strikes fire," his father said, laughing. "I think you had better arrange the matter with Ease as soon as you can, and have things settled. I am proud of your choice too." "I"--Will began; but, instead of speech, he wrung his father's hand, and was off for Mullen House. CHAPTER XLV. A QUIET WEDDING. The marriage of Will and Ease was naturally a quiet one. Wedding Ease with the certainty of hard work before him, and with the consciousness of taking up a man's burdens, Will was thoughtful and grave. He was full of a serious joy, and, as Patty declared, began already to look older and more sedate. Regret as he might the loss to his bride of her old home, he secretly experienced a virile joy that their fortunes were to be of his own carving. "My boy," Dr. Sanford said to him upon the eve of his wedding-day, "make two agreements with your wife the day you marry, and stick to them,--never to cry over spilt milk, and never to cross a bridge till you come to it. That takes care of the past and the future; and, if you cannot bear the present together, you had better separate." Bathalina, too, had her word to say. "I approve of your bein' married," she said. "Some folks don't take no stock in folks gettin' married so young; but I believe in it. Then you ain't so much older than your children that they treat you as if you was their grand-dad; but they're kind of company for you. Now, when you get to be an old man, you may have a son as old as or older than yourself to stick by you. I always believed in folks bein' married young myself." The ceremony took place at the Episcopal church, which the Mullens had for years attended, and was wholly free from display. "God bless you!" Dr. Sanford greeted the newly-wedded pair as they stepped over the threshold of his home. "May you never be less in love than now!" On the following day Miss Mullen flitted from Montfield like the last-remaining bittern, and established herself with her maiden cousin in Boston, where she gradually recovered her normal condition, and posed before a circle of select if somewhat antiquated people, among whom she soon came to feel perfectly at home. Meanwhile life in Montfield went on much as usual. Tom Putnam endeavored vainly to come to an understanding with Patty. She resolutely avoided him, except on a single occasion. As Ease and Patty sat sewing one day, conversation turned on Mrs. Toxteth's masquerade. "Do you know," Ease said, "I never found out what you wore? Emily Purdy told me beforehand that you were going in a man's dress, but of course I didn't believe that." "Emily Purdy!" exclaimed Patty.