"What! you contemplate our having little differences of opinion?"
"Of course," she answers, laughing; "when two such ill-tempered people come together, how can it be otherwise?"
"Quarrel or no quarrel," he cries, passionately kissing her sweet shy lips, as one that can never be satiated with their tender warmth, "we are together now, for bad and good, for fair weather and foul, till death us do part! Say it after me, Essie; don't let ours be a one-sided compact."
And Essie, obedient, murmurs after him, "Till death us do part!"
And so it comes to pass that in the sweet spring weather, when the ground is a carpet of strewn cherry-blooms, when the cows stand knee-deep in buttercups, and the brake-fern is uncrumpling its tender fronds, the church-bells ring out, and they two are wed.
And the sun, that shines down on the bravery of the wedding pomp, as bride and groom pace by, shines also hotlier, with a more brazen sickly glare, on a soldier's grave, over which, three days ago, his comrades fired the parting volley on Bermuda's sultry shore.
The name of the soldier to whom Heaven has granted his discharge is Robert Brandon. Esther Gerard may spare her remorse now; treachery of hers can wound that loyal heart, on which the worm feeds sweetly, never more! Not unknowing of the good fortune of the woman he had so madly, miserably, nobly loved, has he passed away. In his poor schoolboy scrawl he had written her a little simple, badly-worded note, bidding, "God bless and speed her on her way!" The tears had fallen hot and thick upon the paper; but he had wiped them off, and she had never guessed them. He has hoarded his scant pay, has denied himself many of the small comforts that to his brother-officers are bare necessaries of life, that he may send her a wedding-gift befitting Gerard's bride. And he had gone about his wonted ways with no moping martyr's airs, unshaken in his simple creed that, since God wills it, all must be for the best. His honest laugh, if it come seldomer than it used, yet is none the less hearty and genial when it does come. And then, that pestilence which, at stated seasons, never forgetting its appointed periods, visits that tropic clime, comes and lays its heavy hand on the shoulder of many a fair-haired youth; and, among the first, upon the stalwart shoulder of Robert Brandon. And he, with no life-hating madness, with no quarrel against fate, yet not all unwilling, having stoutly fought life's hard battle:
"Surrenders his fair soul
Unto his Captain—Christ!"