The week dragged by like a century, and on Wednesday morning, when I got up and opened my shutters, I found that our wedding-day had begun in a slow autumnal rain. A thick tent of clouds stretched overhead, and the miniature box in the garden looked like flutings of crape on the pebbled walk, which had been washed clean and glistening during the night. The clipped yew stood dark and sombre as a solitary mourner among the blossomless rose-bushes.
At breakfast Mrs. Clay poured my coffee with a rigid hand and an averted face, and Dr. Theophilus appeared to find difficulty in keeping up his cheerful morning comments.
"I'll miss you, Ben, my boy," he remarked, as he rose from the table; "it's a sad day for me when I lose you."
"I hate to lose you, doctor, but I shan't, after all, be far off. I've bought a house, as you know, beyond the Park in Franklin Street."
"The one Jack Montgomery used to live in before he lost his money—yes, it is a fine place. Well, you have my best wishes, Ben, whatever comes; you may be sure of that. I hope you and Sally will have every happiness."
He shook my hand in his hearty grasp before going into his little office, and the next minute I went out into the rain, and walked down for a few words with the General, before I met Sally under the big sycamore at the side gate. I had waited for her but a little while when she came out under an umbrella held by Aunt Euphronasia, who was to accompany us on our journey South in the General's private car. As she entered the carriage, I saw that she wore a white dress under her long black cloak.
"Mammy wouldn't let me be married in black," she said; "she says it means death or a bad husband."
"Dar ain' gwine be a bad husband fur dish yer chile," grumbled the old woman, who was evidently full of gloomy forebodings, "caze she ain' built wid de kinder spine, suh, dat bends easy."
"There'll be nobody at church?" asked Sally.
"Only the General, and I suppose the sexton."