When he had had his mental will of her—excited her almost to blissful tears, soothed her, led her on, deftly, eloquently—he took her smooth hand of a child. All set for the last act, he drew the girl against his shoulder, taking plenty of time.
Her head was still swimming with his eloquence. Hope intoxicated her. His lips meant nothing on her cheek—but her mind was all a-quiver—and it was her mind alone that he had stimulated and excited to an ecstasy uncontrollable; and which now responded and acquiesced.
“And after we marry I am to study for the stage?” she repeated, tremulously, oblivious of his arm tightening around her body.
It transpired, gently and eloquently, that it was for this very reason he desired to marry her and give her what was nearest her girl’s heart—what her girl’s mind most ardently desired in all the world—her liberty to choose.
But he warned her to keep the secret from her family. Trembling, enchanted, almost frightened by the approaching splendour of consummation, she promised in tears.
Then the barrier burst under an overwhelming rush of gratitude. She was his. She would surrender, now, to this man who had suddenly appeared from nowhere;—an emissary of God sent to understand, sympathise, guide her to that destiny which, even he admitted, God had ordained as hers.
Eris was married to E. Stuart Graydon in her twentieth year at the parsonage of the Whitewater Church, at ten o’clock in the morning. All Whitewater attended and gorged. No rural precedent was neglected—neither jest nor rice nor old shoes,—everything happened, from the organ music and the unctuous patronage of “Rev. Styles,” to the thick aroma of the “bounteous repast” at Whitewater Farms, where neighbours came, stuffed themselves, and went away boisterously all that rainy afternoon.
Bride and groom were to depart on the six o’clock train for Niagara.