"Faith, and he'll have to!" said Sandy, in great agitation. "Don't he know that nobody will be looking at him?"
Annette appeared at a bedroom door, a whirl of roses and pink.
"What's the m-matter? Ruth will have a f-fit if you wait much longer, and my hair is coming out of curl."
"Take it off him," whispered Sandy, recklessly, to Jimmy Reed; and violence was prevented only by the timely arrival of Aunt Melvy with the original wedding tie.
The bridal march had sounded many times, and the impatient guests were becoming seriously concerned, when a handkerchief fluttered from the landing and
Sandy and Ruth came down the wide white steps together.
Mr. Meech cleared his throat and, with one hand nervously fidgeting under his coattail, the other thrust into the bosom of his coat, began:
"We are assembled here to-day to witness the greatest and most time-hallowed institution known to man."
Sandy heard no more. The music, the guests, the flowers, even his necktie, faded from his mind.
A sacred hush filled his soul, through which throbbed the vows he was making before God and man. The little hand upon his arm trembled, and his own closed upon it in instant sympathy and protection.