"As if single blessedness could ever be real blessedness!" sneered Enna, coming up just in time to catch the last words.
"Our feelings change as we grow older," returned Miss Stanhope, in her gentle, refined tones, "and we come to look upon quiet and freedom from care as very desirable things."
"And I venture to say that old age is not likely to find Mrs. Percival so happy and contented as is my dear old maiden aunt," remarked Mr. Dinsmore.
"Yet we will hope it may, papa," said Elsie, receiving Enna's salutation with kindly warmth.
But the list of relatives, near connections, and intimate friends, is too long for particular mention of each. All the Dinsmores were there, both married and single; also most of the Allisons. Harold had not come with the others, nor had he either accepted or rejected the invitation.
On first raising her eyes upon the conclusion of the ceremony, had Elsie really seen, far back in the shadow of the doorway, a face white, rigid, hopeless with misery as his when last they met and parted? She could not tell; for if really there, it vanished instantly.
"Did Harold come?" she asked of Richard when he came to salute the bride and groom.
"I think not; I haven't seen him, I can't think what's come over the lad to be so neglectful of his privileges."
Harry Duncan was there, too, hanging upon the smiles of merry, saucy, blue-eyed May Allison; while her brother Richard seemed equally enamored with the brunette beauty and sprightliness of Lottie King.
Stiffness and constraint found no place among the guests, after the event of the evening was over.