"Would you be happier were I your wife?" Belle asked. "Happier! If I am to die I should be resigned to go and wait with outstretched arms for you to join me." Belle, conversing with him a few moments longer, joined Fannie at the window, the two whispered together, when Belle, returning to the bedside, said: "George, would you be entirely happy were I your wife?" "Yes, I could even die happy, for I fear I am to live but a short time. Your faces tell me I am fatally injured. But it would be too much happiness to expect, to gaze upon you as my own wife." Looking for a moment intently into his face, she gently raised his burned hand with her own, and said: "George, I will be your wife, though myself is all I have to give." Bending over the pillow, she touched the parched lips with her own, sealing her promise with a kiss. "God bless you!" were all the words Alden uttered, as, closing his eyes, he fell back exhausted. Belle joined Fannie in an adjoining room; the latter said: "Dear Belle, you are a precious girl--but what will your parents say?" "Mamma will not object, and for the present Papa must not know of it. It is all I can do for George." She threw her arms about Fannie's neck, and a flood of tears followed. Mrs. Hamblin came later, and to her daughter's appeal for consent to the proposed marriage she yielded. She knew her husband would not approve the arrangement, but acting upon her own convictions she could not refuse. None were present at the ceremony but Mrs. Hamblin, Fannie Alden, and the clergyman, besides the strangely joined pair. The sufferer had been awake a long time, his eyes beaming with pleasure at the prospect of marriage with the girl he loved. The clergyman, approaching the bedside, commenced the ceremony. The mother trembled, and, turning to conceal her emotion, burst into tears at the moment the clergyman finished the ceremony. The husband looking into the face of his wife, his eyes filled with joy, and he gasped: "I--I--am so--so--happy!" and then lost consciousness. Loving hands quickly applied restoratives, and in a few moments the sufferer opened his eyes, and said: "I thought I was married--but it was only a dream." "It is not a dream, for I am your wife," said Belle. "Mine, all mine at last," he said, and the invisible angels hovering about his pillow recorded the nuptials in that book the entries in which can never be altered for earthly and dishonest purposes. CHAPTER XXI. SPOILS! SPOILS! Christmas came, the day passing quiet and gloomy at the Alden home. The injured man grew worse and was delirious--living over the awful scenes of the fire many times during the day, and starting from his slumbers, crying out: "Yes, they are saved, they are saved!" then he would moan, "Oh, how the fire burns my flesh! Take that big timber off my back! Must I perish? See, the iron door opens, the people are free--and I have saved them!"