Cornelia's circle of girl-friends yielded nothing suitable in the way of bridesmaids; but there was the groom's sister—and one maiden attendant was enough. Abbie therefore took this part—for the first time. She walked up the long aisle with a bashful modesty. She had a dozen opportunities to meet Ogden's eye, but her embarrassed shyness prevented her from once looking into his face.
Mary Brainard was still in exile, and her mother was confined to her room by one of her nervous attacks; but in one of the back pews, in the twilight under the gallery, a dark, meagre, and dissolute-looking young man had taken his post. And as Burt, with a proud and prosperous smile, led Cornelia down the aisle, tears of indignant rage started from the eyes of his banned and mistreated brother.
The Brainard marriage was celebrated in print, just as the Brainard divorce had been. Some of the cuts that had illustrated the one were also used to illustrate the other.
Mr. and Mrs. Burton Brainard went to California and were absent a month. On their return they took up their quarters in the Brainard house, while Burt considered the question of building. Cornelia had made up her own mind where this building should be done.
They returned to town in accordance with the mandate conveyed by certain cards that had been sent out, directed by the serviceable Abbie, during their absence. These cards announced that "Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tillinghast Brainard" would be "at home" on the "Thursdays in September."
Cornelia had gloated over these cards on their arrival from the stationer's.
"Mrs. Burton Tillinghast Brainard," she read, with a vigorous hitch of her shoulder. "H'm! now we're ready to knock out your Smiths and your Joneses." She tossed her head. "And then bring on your Floyds and your Ingleses!"
Before going away she had wrung Ogden's hand, and had committed her parents to him during the concluding days of their stay. Especially was he enjoined to take them up to the top of the Clifton on the very first clear day. A clear day came; he conducted them up to the roof-observatory and showed them the city, and they numbered the towers thereof.
The old people tiptoed gingerly around the parapet, while Ogden waved his hand over the prospect—the mouth of the river with its elevators and its sprawling miles of railway track; the weakish blue of the lake, with the coming and going of schooners and propellers, and the "cribs" that stood on the faint horizon—"that's where our water comes from," George explained; the tower of the water-works itself and the dull and distant green of Lincoln Park; the towering bulk of other great sky-scrapers and the grimy spindling of a thousand surrounding chimneys; the lumber-laden brigs that were tugged slowly through the drawbridges, while long strings of drays and buggies and street-cars accumulated during the wait. "My! don't they look little!" cried Mrs. McNabb.
George smiled with all the gratified vanity of a native.