The Philosopher smiled—inscrutably. Probably he felt that an inscrutable smile was his safest means of navigating waters like these.
We went down to the wedding. The Preacher stood up very straight while he was being married, and though his boyish cheek paled and reddened again as the ceremony proceeded, his responses were clear-cut. Rhodora made a bonny bride. The absurd vision I had had of her, ever since I had heard she was to be married, of her taking the officiating clergyman's book out of his hand and steering the service for herself, melted away before the vision of her serious young beauty as she made her vows, and turned from the clergyman's felicitations, at the conclusion of the service, to take Grandmother into a tender embrace.
"I owe it all to you," she said to Grandmother by and by, in my hearing, as we three happened to be for a little alone together. She turned to me. "I was a barbarian when she took me," she said. "A barbarian of barbarians. If it hadn't been for Grandmother I should be one yet, and he"—her glance went off for an instant toward her young husband—"would never have dreamed of looking at me."
"You were not very different, my dear," said Grandmother, in her gentle way, "from many girls of this day."
"Forgive me, dear," responded Rhodora, "but I was so much worse that only a grandmother like you could have shown me what I was."
"I never tried to show you what you were," said Grandmother. "Only what you could be. And now—I must lose you."
The Preacher came up, the Skeptic by his side. The Philosopher and Hepatica, seeing the old magic circle forming, promptly added themselves.
It fell out, presently, that the Philosopher and I, a step away from the others, were observing them as we talked together. The Philosopher had adjusted his eyeglasses, having carefully polished them. He seemed to want to see things clearly to-day.
"This is a scene I've witnessed a good many times, first and last," said he. "Each time it impresses me afresh with the daring of the participants. Brave young things, setting sail upon a mighty ocean, in a small boat, which may or may not be seaworthy—some of them, it seems, sometimes, with neither chart nor compass—certainly with little knowledge of the crew. It's a trite comparison, I suppose."
"You talk as if you stood safely on the shore," I ventured. "Is life no ocean to you, then—and do you never feel adrift upon it?"