And just about this time, too, Speckport found something else to talk about—no less a matter, indeed, than the marriage of Valentine Blake, Esq., to Miss Laura Amelia Blair. Such a snapper of a day as the wedding-day was—cold enough to freeze the leg off an iron pot—but for all that, the big cathedral was half filled with curious Speckportonians, straining their necks to see the bride and bridegroom, and their aiders and abettors. Mr. Blake stood it like a man, and looked almost good-looking in his neatly-fitting wedding suit; and Charley Marsh by his side looked like a young prince—handsomer than any prince that ever wore a crown, poor Cherrie thought, as she made eyes at him from her pew.
There was a wedding-breakfast to be eaten at Mr. Blair's, and a very jolly breakfast it was. And then Mrs. V. Blake exchanged her bridal-gear for a traveling-dress, and was handed into the carriage that was to convey her to the railway station, by her husband; and the bridemaids were kissed all round by the bride, and good-bye was said, and the happy pair were fairly started on their bridal tour.
It took Speckport a week to fairly digest this matter, and by the end of that time it got another delectable morsel of gossip to swallow. Charley Marsh was going away. He was a rich man, now; but for all that he was going to be a doctor, and was off to New York right away, to finish his medical studies and get his diploma.
It was a miserably wet and windy day, that which preceded the young man's departure. A depressing day, that lowered the spirits of the most sanguine, and made them feel life was a cheat, and not what it is cracked up to be, and wonder how they could ever laugh and enjoy themselves at all. A dreary day to say good-bye; but Charley, buttoned up in his overcoat, and making sunshine with his bright blue eyes and pleasant smile, went through with it bravely, and had bidden his dear five hundred adieu in the course of two brisk hours. There was only one friend remaining to whom he had yet to say "that dear old word good-bye;" and in the rainy twilight he drove up the long avenue of Redmon, black and ghastly now, and was admitted by Mrs. Hill herself.
"Oh, Mr. Charley, is it you?" the good woman said. "You're going away, they tell me. Dear me, we'll miss you so much!"
"That's right, Mrs. Hill! I like my friends to miss me; but I don't mean to stay away forever. Is Miss Henderson at home?"
"She is in the library. Walk right in!"
Charley was quite at home in Redmon Villa. The library door stood ajar. Some one was playing, and he entered unheard. The rain lashed and blustered at the windows; and the wail of the wind, and sea, and woods made a dull, roaring sound of dreariness without; but a coal-fire glowed red and cheery in the steel grate; and curtained, and close, and warm, the library was a very cozy place that bad January day. The twilight shadows lurked in the corners; but, despite their deepening gloom, the visitor saw a little, slender, girlish shape sitting before a small cottage-piano and softly touching the keys. Old, sad memories seemed to be at work in her heart; for the chords she struck were mournful, and she broke softly into singing at last—a song as sad as a funeral-hymn:
"Rain! rain! rain!
On the cold autumnal night!
Like tears we weep o'er the banished hope
That fled with the summer light.
"O rain! rain! rain!
You mourn for the flowers dead;
But hearts there are, in their hopeless woe,
That not even tears may shed!