There was a slight movement, and a faint murmur of “Here she comes,” as the fair white-robed figure, her slight form half-concealed by a long floating veil--neither Honiton nor Mechlin, yet it served the purpose well--was first caught sight of, passing behind the old baptismal font. The faint blush that had risen over neck and brow as Honor entered and _felt_ the gaze of many eyes upon her deepened into crimson as she neared the altar. Then a sudden change came over the clear complexion which had been but a moment before glowing as a rose, and “from that out,” as Mrs. Tamfrey, who was present, was afterwards heard to say, “the bonny bird looked for all the world as if she had seen a ghost.” As for happy honest John Beacham, he played, as is generally the melancholy fate of bridegrooms, a very secondary part on the occasion. “M.,” all-important as he really is, sinks in his bran new coat and waistcoat, into something even less than insignificant by the side of the peerless creature in her robes of innocence, with the symbolic wreath upon her “shining hair.” No one but his mother thought much of John as he stood side by side with “the Irish gurl,” and in a clear manly voice pronounced the vows that bound him to her whilst life should last. To the elderly woman, about to sink into the mild dignity of dowagerhood, that tall, broad-shouldered man, with his thick wavy hair, his clear blue eyes, and, as the worthy woman often boasted, his “wholesome” skin, was a far more important personage than that “slip of a girl” who had, at an age when he ought to have known better, made such a fool and “ninny” of her only son. Her eyes, from the moment that he entered the church, never for a moment left his face. The demon of jealousy, which in the solitude of her home she had in some degree successfully combated, returned with redoubled force at the sight of John’s proud and radiant face, filled with a tenderness which gave quite a novel expression to his sun-burnt features.