The young people were married like campaigners under a tree in a beautiful magnolia grove, the rhododendron blooming everywhere in the woods and the mocking-birds in full song. Colonel Lloyd was in uniform, armed and spurred, Miss Fisher in her hat and riding-habit, which last she wore with peculiar elegance; as the skirts of the day were of great length, the superfluous folds were caught up and carried over one arm, and it was said she had attained her graceful proficiency in this art, which was esteemed of much difficulty, by constant practice before the long mirror in her wardrobe at home. She used to tell afterward of the beautiful site, the velvet turf, the magnolia blooms, the rhododendron blossoms, the singing mocking-birds. Then she would enumerate the brilliant martial assemblage that witnessed the ceremony, the men of high rank in full uniform; the wives of a number of them--refugees in the Confederacy "seeking for a home," as the sardonically humorous song of that day phrased it--also graced the occasion. Her father and brothers, all the six Fisher men, were present, and she used to say, with the tone of an after-thought, but with a glint of mischief in her eye, "_And_ Colonel Lloyd--_he_ was there, too!" There, but hardly up to the standard. He was a man whose courage had been of especial note, even in those days when bravery seemed the rule. He had had, too, exceptional opportunities to display his mettle. But on this occasion his terror was so palpable that he trembled perceptibly; he was pale and agitated; he fumbled for the ring and occasioned a general fear that he might let it fall--altogether furnishing an admirable exhibition of the stage fright usual with bridegrooms. All these details did she observe and recollect and even his gravity would relax as she rehearsed them in after years. It was considered one of the evidences of her incurable frivolity that she seemed to care nothing for that momentous incident of her experience in those days, hardly to remember it,--the exploit by which she had saved the lives of three men, sore harassed and beset; but she found endless source of interest in the reminiscence of trifles such as the incongruous aspect of the chaplain who officiated at the wedding ceremony, with his spurs showing on his reverend heels beneath his surplice, and the brass buttons on his sleeves as he lifted his hands in benediction,--which afforded her a glee of retrospect. CHAPTER XIV