Thus the bride accepted, without knowing it, the extraordinary honours that were done her, while all the station stood amazed by the number and greatness of the guests. The Lieutenant-Governor came without a murmur to compliment the great engineer. He would not have done it for Fred Stanhope, who was Brevet-Major, and thought himself a much greater man than Rowland. Neither would the General commanding have come to Fred unless he had known him in private, or had some special interest in him. But they all collected to the wedding of the man who had made the railroads and ditches--a proof, the military people thought, how abominably they were neglected by Government, though it could not sustain itself without them, not for a day! They were, however, all of them deeply impressed by the greatness that had come upon Miss Ferrars, whom they had pitied and patronised, or even snubbed during her humiliation--by the splendour of her dress, and of the breakfast, and of the bridegroom’s presents to her--and still more, by the manner in which she received the congratulations of the big wigs without the least excitement, as if she had been all her life in the habit of entertaining the great ones of the earth. “Give you my word,” said the little subaltern Bremner, who was an ugly little fellow, and had not much to recommend him, “she was not a bit more civil to the best of them than she was to me.” “Looked as if she had been used to nothing but swells all her life,” said another. “And as if she thought one just as good as another.” On the whole, it was this that struck the company, especially the gentlemen, most--that she was just as civil to a little lieutenant as she was to the General commanding. The ladies had other things to distract their minds, the jewels, the bridal dress, the table. Such a commotion had never been made in the Station before by any marriage: the Colonel’s daughter’s wedding feast was nothing in comparison: and that this should all be for the poor lady who had been nothing more than nursery governess to the Stanhopes, was quite bewildering. When the pair went away, the whole Station turned out. It was, of course, quite late when they started, as they were only going as far as Cumsalla. The Station was lit with coloured lamps, which blazed softly in the evening dusk, turning that oasis in the sand into a magical place. And the big moon got up with a bound into the sky, as she sometimes does when at the full, thrusting her large round lustrous face into the centre of all, as if to see what it meant. “By Jove, she’s come out to look at you too,” said the bridegroom to his bride. He was considerably excited, as was but natural--enchanted with the success of all his plans, and the _éclat_ of the whole performance. It was altogether a trying moment--for perhaps something of a vulgar fibre in the man was betrayed by his eagerness that it should be “a grand affair,” and his delight in its success.