So that was the “Mystery” then! A Quaker wedding! “Pooh!” said Melville; “it wasn’t half so great as ours. Anybody can get married!”
Then there was such a deal of hand-shaking and good-wishing that Octave couldn’t just bear it. She was sorry and she was glad; and all she knew was that she was thankful when it was over, and the whole family gathered in characteristic groups to watch the misbehaving aunt and uncle drive away.
There was Octave, supporting Melville so that he could see through the window what others witnessed from the doorway; “the girls,” with Christina between them, clinging together on the steps; and Fritzy, close beside Grandmother Amy.
Aunt Ruth leaned far out of the carriage, and her face was all a conflict of joy and pain. “Fare thee well, my mother! Do not thee misjudge me, and do—keep safe!”
“Pooh! Aunt Ruthy, don’t you worry. I’ll take care of her,” said little Fritz; and the last glimpse Ruth caught of her home showed that valiant lad with his arms about his grandmother’s waist, and the protecting pride of manhood in his honest blue eyes.
THE END.
NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
A SCORE OF FAMOUS COMPOSERS. By Nathan Haskell Dole, formerly musical editor of the Philadelphia Press and Evening Bulletin. With portraits of Beethoven, Wagner, Liszt, Haydn, etc. 12mo, $1.50.
No pains have been spared to make this volume of musical biographies accurate, and at the same time entertaining. Many quaint and curious details have been found in out-of-the-way German or Italian sources. Beginning with Palestrina, “the Prince of Music,” concerning whose life many interesting discoveries have been recently made, and ending with Wagner, the twenty Composers, while in the majority of German origin, still embrace representatives of England and Italy, Hungary and Russia, of France and Poland. Free from pedantry and technicalities, simple and straightforward in style, these sketches aim above all to acquaint the reader, and particularly the young, with the personality of the subjects, to make them live again while recounting their struggles and triumphs.