“Now remember my advice and start from to-day as master; let her see that you won’t be trodden upon.”
“Oh, don’t be an idiot!”
“Bless us, he thinks, poor fellow, that it’ll be rather nice to be trodden upon by her! Quick! She’s coming! Take your eyes from the roof and try to look as though you’d been here before and could do it on your head.”
Good as the advice was it passed unheeded, for all eyes were now turned towards the church porch as Ethel Woodburn entered—charmingly sweet, and shyly happy.
The ceremony over, our friend Ted forgot his new-born dignity and became a boy again, and a perfectly irrepressible one, until Jim and his dainty wife had driven away in the direction of the everlasting hills.
Then came the reaction of depression that must inevitably attend the happiest and best-suited marriages.
“Poor old colonel seems cut-up!” said Charlie, as he and Spencer and Ted lounged in the veranda some hours later gazing at the spangled velvet of the sky.
“No wonder,” mused Spencer. “He’s left alone now, poor fellow! It’s hardly a joyful occasion for him. Have a cheroot, Russell?”
“No, thanks!” Ted replied.
“Teddy’s a good boy,” Dorricot laughed.