CHAPTER XXXIX.
CONCLUSION.
Three months after the incidents related in our previous chapter a large and fashionable audience assembled, one bright day, in a certain church on Madison avenue to witness a marriage that had been anticipated with considerable interest and curiosity among the smart set.
Exactly at the last stroke of noon the bridal party passed down the central aisle.
It was composed of four ushers, as many bridesmaids a maid of honor and two stately, graceful figures in snow-white apparel.
One of these latter was a veiled bride, her tall, willowy figure clad in gleaming satin, her golden head crowned with natural orange blossoms, and she carried an exquisite bouquet of the same fragrant flowers in her ungloved hands—for the groom had forbidden the conventional white kids in this ceremony—while on her lovely face there was a light and sweetness which only perfect happiness could have painted there.
Her companion, a woman of regal presence and equally beautiful in her way, was clothed in costly white velvet, richly garnished with pearls and rare old point lace.
The fair bride and her attendant were no other than Isabel Stewart and her daughter.
"Who should give away my darling save her own mother?" she had questioned, with smiling but tremulous lips, when this matter was being discussed, together with other preparations for the wedding.