By Berwen Banks

by Allen Raine

"I wonder why she doesn't come," he said, turning back to look up the winding path through the wood; "it's quite time."

"Yes, it is quite time," said Ellis. "I will go and put on my surplice. You three can sit in that ricketty front pew, or range yourselves at the altar rail, in fact—there she is coming down the path, you won't be kept long in suspense."

And as the three young men stood waiting with their eyes fixed upon the doorway, Valmai appeared, looking very pale and nervous. Gwynne Ellis had already walked up the church, and was standing inside the broken altar rails. Valmai had never felt so lonely and deserted. Alone amongst these strangers, father! mother! old friends all crowded into her mind; but the memory of them only seemed to accentuate their absence at this important time of her life! She almost failed as she walked up with faltering step, but a glance at Cardo's sympathetic, beaming face restored her courage, and as she took her place by his side she regained her composure. Before the simple, impressive service was over she was quite herself again, and when Cardo took her hand in his in a warm clasp, she returned the pressure with a loving smile of confidence and trust, and received the congratulations of Gwynne Ellis and his two friends with a smiling though blushing face.

The two strangers, never having seen her before, were much struck by her beauty; and indeed she had never looked more lovely. She wore one of her simple white frocks, and the white hat which had been her best during the summer, adorned only with a wreath of freshly gathered jessamine, a bunch of which was also fastened at her neck. With the addition of a pair of white gloves which Cardo had procured for her, she looked every inch a bride. She wore no ornament save the wedding ring which now glistened on her finger.

"Let us do everything in order," said Ellis. "Take your wife down to the vestry."

Cardo drew her hand through his arm, and at the word "wife," pressed it gently to his side, looking smilingly down at the blushing face beside him. When they reached the vestry, whose outer wall in the old tower was lying crumbling on the grass outside, while the two young men chatted freely with the bride and bridegroom, they were joined by Gwynne Ellis, carrying an old and time-worn book under his arm.

Cardo gasped, "I never thought of the register; it is kept in the new church! Is it absolutely necessary, Ellis? What shall we do? What have you there?"

"Why, the old register, of course! I furraged it out last night from that old iron chest inside the altar rails. There is another there, going back to the last century, I should think. I must have a look at them; they will be interesting."

"Ellis, you are a friend in need," said Cardo. "I had never thought of this part of the ceremony."

"No, be thankful you had a cool and collected head to guide you. See, here is a blank space at the bottom of one of these musty pages. It won't be at all en règle to insert your marriage here; but I dare not bring the new register out of the other church; moreover, there may be another wedding soon, and then yours would be discovered."