And by various devices she busied me until the arrival of the minister and the few intimate friends banished all further thought of Annie's regret at not being present. Miss Merton's loveliness and Mr. Lang's manly beauty made a picture I would gladly have studied longer than the time required to make them man and wife. I had long ago seen the ceremony performed by Mr. Purdo for a rustic couple; but this was a new and more fascinating phase of it. Impressed as I was apt to be by anything appealing to my emotions or sense of beauty, I did not care to join at once Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold, who engaged in their customary repartee directly after the bride retired to prepare for her journey; but Miss Darry, slipping away from Mr. Leopold, soon joined me on the lawn, to which I had stepped from the French window. "What a serious expression, Sandy! One might imagine you had been making all these solemn promises yourself. You must learn not to be so easily affected by forms and symbols. It is a weakness of your poetic temperament. Their love has existed just as truly all these months as now; yet I never saw you grow serious over the contemplation of it, until a minister consecrated it by prayer and address." I started. "You do not give much of a niche to Cupid in your gallery of life, Miss Darry." "Now that is poorer reasoning than I should have looked for even from you, Sandy. Because I laugh at your reverence for outward expression, do I necessarily depreciate the sentiment?" "No," I answered, bluntly; "I was thinking how you bade me set aside Annie Bray,--how you always slight her claims upon me." "Ah, it has a personal application, then," she replied, thoughtfully, but frankly as before. "It is only because I want you to make the most of your fine powers, that I would have you choose friends who can appreciate you." "I know that you have been disinterested, noble," I returned, remorsefully. "But outward success would never atone to me for the lack of love. Perhaps it is through my very weakness that I cling so to the only human being who really loves me." Miss Dairy's face changed color. For the first time in her intercourse with me, she was strongly and visibly moved. "Sandy," she said, after a pause, in a low, broken voice, strangely at variance with its usual ringing tone, "without this love I, as a woman, have lived all my life, until a week ago; and then, because it was not the love I demanded, even though I could have taken it with inexpressible comfort into my lonely life, I rejected it. I tell you this merely as an encouragement. If Annie Bray is all you crave, forsake everything else for her; if not, deny yourself the gratification of being worshipped, and wait until you also can bestow your whole heart."