In a few minutes the wedding group was formed. There were only five persons: the bride and bridegroom, Richard Tremaine, Mr. Lyddon, and Mr. Brand. Mr. Brand, looking thoroughly frightened, began some high-sounding platitudes, rashly inquiring of Neville if he knew his own mind. “Certainly I do,” answered Neville, interrupting him, “and so does Angela. Please proceed as quickly as possible, as my honor requires that I should not remain away from my post one moment longer than is necessary.” Richard produced the license, and Mr. Brand began the wedding ceremony. Until that moment no one had thought of a ring, but when that part of the ceremony was reached in which the ring is necessary, Neville looked confounded. He took Angela’s hand, however, and drew from it a little ruby ring which he had given her when she was a child, and that was made to do duty as a wedding ring. And so Angela Vaughn became Neville Tremaine’s wife. When the ceremony was over Richard shook hands with his brother, and kissed Angela tenderly. Lyddon, also, shook hands with Neville, and then, with a breaking heart, kissed Angela on the forehead for the first time in his life. This, then, was the plucking of this blossom in the flowering time. Richard made no suggestion that Neville should return to the house, but Neville himself, after all, was quite unequal to leaving Harrowby forever without one parting word to his father and mother. They walked to the house, Angela between Richard and Neville, while Mr. Brand, forgotten, lagged behind with Lyddon, who neither saw nor heard him, although they were but a yard apart. As the two brothers, with the new-made bride, entered the hall, they found Mrs. Tremaine sitting on the sofa in the same spot where Richard had left her. The candles were sputtering, and the pallid light of the early dawn had crept into the silent hall. Colonel Tremaine still sat motionless upon the settee at the landing on the stairs. Neville went up to his mother and without touching her, he, with his whole heart, his eyes, and voice, said: “I could not leave this house without one last farewell to you and my father, and I must once more see the rooms which I shall never see again.” He turned to go into the drawing-room and Angela went with him. Over the big grand piano hung a portrait of Mrs. Tremaine when she was a little girl of six. “That was the first thing I remember,” Neville said to Angela. “When I was a little boy Mammy Tulip told me that was my mother, and I couldn’t understand that she should ever have been a little child. There is my father’s portrait in his uniform when he came from the Mexican War. I believe it was that picture and my father’s stories of that war that made me a soldier.”