"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroes and my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of our pride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been too exacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, the golden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliant opportunities I was not jealous of, and which will be mine no more, because I had not trimmed my virgin lamp; and so I slept away my girlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh,' and I behold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fate is here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the cross advanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway of this journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'"
"This 'company,'" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to see me marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my sole spectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations, the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. They give forth my lost tribe, and all cry at me, 'Go, leave us, proud one! despiser, go!' Yet there is one I see, pure as my bride, white as my captive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, my son, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heart is very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poor stranger you have bought.'"
He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the clergyman's low, but gentlest, tones:
"Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"
"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drew a long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells of grief.
He could not distinctly answer, as he joined her hand to the minister's. The minister lost his office and speech for a moment, joining her hand to the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could not control, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool, moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church's deliberate language.
When both had made this solemn promise, she reached for the little ring, and gave it to her old lover, the minister, and Virgie loosed her glove. Mr. Tilghman, his tears silently falling upon his book, passed the ring to Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, no bigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayers were said with deep feeling, and he pronounced them man and wife. Then, shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright as faith could make it:
"My friend, may I take my kiss?"
Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and he hardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying,
"Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship both surround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securest when you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float at perfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds."