CHAPTER XXIV.
The Wedding-Day—Enormous Excitement in the Village—Preparations for the Event—The Conduct of Bob Parker—The Ceremony at the Church and the Company at Magruder's—A Last Look at some Old Friends—Departure of the Bride and Groom—Some uncommonly Solemn Reflections, and then the End.
Yesterday was the day of the wedding.
I suppose no one can hope to describe accurately the sensation that is created by such an event in a little community like ours. It has supplied the ladies of the village with material for discussion for several weeks past, and the extraordinary interest manifested in it has constantly grown stronger until it culminated in a blaze of excitement which made calmness upon the part of any New Castilian upon the great day a wholly impossible condition. My own wife has introduced the subject in her conversation with me at every available opportunity; and when I have grown weary of hearing about the preparations for the wedding, about the purchases made by the Magruders for Bessie, about the presents given to the bride by her friends, about the future prospects of the pair, and about other matrimonial things innumerable, the excellent partner of my joys, still with unabated enthusiasm, has turned from so dull a listener, and seizing her bonnet and shawl, has darted off to visit Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Hopkins, and has found them eager to participate in conversation upon these subjects. During the past month this sympathetic woman has called at Magruder's at least three times a day to ascertain the latest facts respecting the situation, and to give advice and assistance to the busy workers who have been preparing the multitude of articles which a girl must have before she is married. Every woman in the village was familiar, long ago, with the minutest details of the arrangements, and all of them were so deeply absorbed in the preparations and in contemplation of the approaching catastrophe that they cared for nothing else. If there had been revolutions, if thrones had tottered to their fall, if hurricanes had swept over the land and the nations had been stricken by the scourge, I verily believe that these devoted women of New Castle would have regarded these calamities with steadfast composure, and would have excluded them from a place in the social debates wherein the wedding of Bessie Magruder was the one great subject of discussion.
There is nothing more intense in nature than the interest felt by a woman in the marriage of another woman. The fanatic fury of a Hindoo devotee is mere icy indifference in comparison to it.
It was entertaining to watch Bob Parker upon the evening before the wedding and upon the morning of the great day itself. He had everything ready a week before the time, and upon the last night of his bachelor life he had nothing to do but to sit at home with us and think. And so, while I read my book and while Mrs. Adeler finished the bonnet that she had made for the occasion from old material (the dexterous economy of that woman, by the way, is simply phenomenal), Bob fidgeted about. He pretended to read the paper; he threw himself upon the lounge and counterfeited sleep; he darted suddenly up stairs to see if he had put a sufficient number of collars in his trunk; he darted down again and tried on his new hat for the fiftieth time; he stood by the fire and expressed his fear, often repeated during the day, that there would be rain on the morrow; he tried to wind up his watch four times, and he examined his pocket-book over and over again to ascertain if the ring was safe. At a ridiculously early hour he said he was tired and must go to bed; but when I ascended the stairs about midnight, I could hear him still moving about. He was nervous, excited and anxious.
