Moods
lest he should damage the effect of this beautiful white rose. For ten
minutes, ages they seemed, the five stood together listening to the stir
below, looking at one another, till they were tired of the sight and
scent of orange blossoms, and wishing that the whole affair was safely
over. But the instant a portentous "Hem!" was heard, and a white glove
seen to beckon from the stair foot, every one fell into a flutter. Moor
turned paler still, and Sylvia felt his heart beat hard against her
hand. She herself was seized with a momentary desire to run away and
say "No" again; Mark looked as if nerving himself for immediate
execution, and Jessie feebly whispered--
"Oh, Clara, I'm going to faint!"
"Good heavens, what shall I do with her? Mark, support her! My darling
girl, smell this and bear up. For mercy sake do something, Sylvia, and
don't stand there looking as if you'd been married every day for a
year."
In his excitement, Mark gave his bride a little shake. Its effect was
marvellous. She rallied instantly, with a reproachful glance at her
crumpled veil and a decided--
"Come quick, I can go now."
Down they went, through a wilderness of summer silks, black coats, and
bridal gloves. How they reached their places none of them ever knew;
Mark said afterward, that the instinct of self preservation led him to
the only means of extrication that circumstances allowed. The moment the
Bishop opened his book, Prue took out her handkerchief and cried
steadily through the entire ceremony, for dear as were the proprieties,
the "children" were dearer still.
At Sylvia's desire, Mark was married first, and as she stood listening
to the sonorous roll of the service falling from the Bishop's lips, she
tried to feel devout and solemn, but failed to do so. She tried to keep
her thoughts from wandering, but continually found herself wondering if
that sob came from Prue, if her father felt it very much, and when it
would be done. She tried to keep her eyes fixed timidly upon the carpet
as she had been told to do, but they would rise and glance about against
her will.
One of these derelictions from the path of duty, nearly produced a
catastrophe. Little Tilly, the gardener's pretty child, had strayed in
from among the servants peeping at a long window in the rear, and
established herself near the wedding group, looking like a small ballet
girl in her full white frock and wreath pushed rakishly askew on her
curly pate. As she stood regarding the scene with dignified amazement,
her eye met Sylvia's. In spite of the unusual costume, the baby knew her
playmate, and running to her, thrust her head under the veil with a
delighted "Peep a bo!" Horror seized Jessie, Mark was on the brink of a
laugh, and Moor looked like one fallen from the clouds. But Sylvia drew
the little marplot close to her with a warning word, and there she
stayed, quietly amusing herself with "pooring" the silvery dress,
smelling the flowers and staring at the Bishop.
After this, all prospered. The gloves came smoothly off, the rings went
smoothly on; no one cried but Prue, no one laughed but Tilly; the brides
were admired, the grooms envied; the service pronounced impressive, and
when it ended, a tumult of congratulations arose.
Sylvia always had a very confused idea of what happened during the next
hour. She remembered being kissed till her cheeks burned, and shaken
hands with till her fingers tingled; bowing in answer to toasts, and
forgetting to reply when addressed by the new name; trying to eat and
drink, and discovering that everything tasted of wedding cake; finding
herself up stairs hurrying on her travelling dress, then down stairs
saying good by; and when her father embraced her last of all, suddenly
realizing with a pang, that she was married and going away, never to be
little Sylvia any more.
Prue _was_ gratified to her heart's content, for, when the two bridal
carriages had vanished with handkerchiefs flying from their windows, in
answer to the white whirlwind on the lawn, Mrs. Grundy, with an
approving smile on her aristocratic countenance, pronounced this the
most charming affair of the season.
CHAPTER XIII.
SYLVIA'S HONEYMOON.
It began with a pleasant journey. Day after day they loitered along
country roads that led them through many scenes of summer beauty;
pausing at old-fashioned inns and wayside farmhouses, or gipsying at
noon in some green nook where their four-footed comrades dined off their
tablecloth while they made merry over the less simple fare their last
hostess had provided for them. When the scenery was uninteresting, as
was sometimes the case, for Nature will not disturb her domestic
arrangements for any bridal pair, one or the other read aloud, or both
sang, while conversation was a never-failing pastime and silence had
charms which they could enjoy. Sometimes they walked a mile or two, ran
down a hillside, rustled through a grain field, strolled into an
orchard, or feasted from fruitful hedges by the way, as care-free as the
squirrels on the wall, or the jolly brown bees lunching at the sign of
"The Clover-top." They made friends with sheep in meadows, cows at the
brook, travellers morose or bland, farmers full of a sturdy sense that
made their chat as wholesome as the mould they delved in; school
children barefooted and blithe, and specimens of womankind, from the
buxom housewife who took them under her motherly wing at once, to the
sour, snuffy, shoe-binding spinster with "No Admittance" written all
over her face.
To Moor the world was glorified with the purple light which seldom
touches it but once for any of us; the journey was a wedding march, made
beautiful by summer, victorious by joy; his young wife the queen of
women, and himself an equal of the gods because no longer conscious of a
want. Sylvia could not be otherwise than happy, for finding unbounded
liberty and love her portion, she had nothing to regret, and regarded
marriage as an agreeable process which had simply changed her name and
given her protector, friend, and lover all in one. She was therefore her
sweetest and sincerest self, miraculously docile, and charmingly gay;
interested in all she saw, and quite overflowing with delight when the
last days of the week betrayed the secret that her destination was the
mountains.
Loving the sea so well, her few flights from home had given her only
marine experiences, and the flavor of entire novelty was added to the
feast her husband had provided for her. It came to her not only when she
could enjoy it most, but when she needed it most, soothing the unquiet,
stimulating the nobler elements which ruled her life by turns and
fitting her for what lay before her. Choosing the quietest roads, Moor
showed her the wonders of a region whose wild grandeur and beauty make
its memory a life-long satisfaction. Day after day they followed
mountain paths, studying the changes of an ever-varying landscape,
watching the flush of dawn redden the granite fronts of these Titans
scarred with centuries of storm, the lustre of noon brood over them
until they smiled, the evening purple wrap them in its splendor, or
moonlight touch them with its magic; till Sylvia, always looking up at
that which filled her heart with reverence and awe, was led to look
beyond, and through the medium of the friend beside her learned that
human love brings us nearer to the Divine, and is the surest means to
that great end.
The last week of the honeymoon came all too soon, for then they had
promised to return. The crowning glory of the range was left until the
last, and after a day of memorable delights Sylvia sat in the sunset
feasting her eyes upon the wonders of a scene which is indescribable,
for words have limits and that is apparently illimitable. Presently Moor
came to her asking--
"Will you join a party to the great ice palace, and see three acres of
snow in August, worn by a waterfall into a cathedral, as white if not as
durable as any marble?"
"I sit so comfortably here I think I had rather not. But you must go
because you like such wonders, and I shall rest till you come back."
"Then I shall take myself off and leave you to muse over the pleasures
of the day, which for a few hours has made you one of the most eminent
women this side the Rocky Mountains. There is a bugle at the house here
with which to make the echoes, I shall take it with me, and from time to
time send up a sweet reminder that you are not to stray away and lose
yourself."
Sylvia sat for half an hour, then wearied by the immensity of the wide
landscape she tried to rest her mind by examining the beauties close at
hand. Strolling down the path the sight-seers had taken, she found
herself in a rocky basin, scooped in the mountain side like a cup for a
little pool, so clear and bright it looked a diamond set in jet. A
fringe of scanty herbage had collected about its brim, russet mosses,
purple heath, and delicate white flowers, like a band of tiny hill
people keeping their revels by some fairy well. The spot attracted her,
and remembering that she was not to stray away, she sat down beside the
path to wait for her husband's return.
In the act of bending over the pool to sprinkle the thirsty little
company about it, her hand was arrested by the tramp of approaching
feet, and looking up to discover who was the disturber of her retreat,
she saw a man pausing at the top of the path opposite to that by which
she had come. He seemed scrutinizing the solitary occupant of the dell
before descending; but as she turned her face to him he flung away
knapsack, hat, and staff, and then with a great start she saw no
stranger, but Adam Warwick. Coming down to her so joyfully, so
impetuously, she had only time to recognise him, and cry out, when she
was swept up in an embrace as tender as irresistible, and lay there
conscious of nothing, but that happiness like some strong swift angel
had wrapt her away into the promised land so long believed in, hungered
for, and despaired of, as forever lost. Soon she heard his voice,
breathless, eager, but so fond it seemed another voice than his.
"My darling! did you think I should never come?"
"I thought you had forgotten me, I knew you were married. Adam, put me
down."
But he only held her closer, and laughed such a happy laugh that Sylvia
felt the truth before he uttered it.
"How could I marry, loving you? How could I forget you even if I had
never come to tell you this? Sylvia, I know much that has passed.
Geoffrey's failure gave me courage to hope for success, and that the
mute betrothal made with a look so long ago had been to you all it has
been to me."
"Adam, you are both right and wrong,--you do not know all,--let me tell
you,"--began Sylvia, as these proofs of ignorance brought her to herself
with a shock of recollection and dismay. But Warwick was as absolute in
his happiness as he had been in his self-denial, and took possession of
her mentally as well as physically with a despotism too welcome and
entire to be at once resisted.
"You shall tell me nothing till I have shown the cause of my
hard-seeming silence. I must throw off that burden first, then I will
listen to you until morning if you will. I have earned this moment by a
year of effort, let me keep you here and enjoy it without alloy."
The old charm had lost none of its power, for absence seemed to have
gifted it with redoubled potency, the confirmation of that early hope to
grace it with redoubled warmth. Sylvia let him keep her, feeling that he
had earned that small reward for a year's endeavor, resolving to grant
all now left her to bestow, a few moments more of blissful ignorance,
then to show him his loss and comfort him, sure that her husband would