But he was bidden to the wedding, and must needs go,—which he did, looking very glum, and kissing the bride with far less gusto than he had done in former times. But it was a very festive occasion, notwithstanding, for the bridegroom appeared in a blue coat with brass buttons, and his hair was greased to preternatural glossiness, while all the six children stood in a row, their stature being graduated like a flight of steps, and the cake was all that Molly had ever pictured it in the wildest flight of her imagination. And Molly herself in a perfect cloud of gauze and blaze of blushes renewed her youth prodigiously.
It was all over, and John Avery walked slowly homeward with a glimmering consciousness that the things of this life in general were rather shaky and uncertain,—indulging even a brief doubt as to the reliability of his system of averages.
Fifty. Both of our old bachelors are beginning to grow gray and morose. Philo stoops considerably, but is otherwise in excellent physical preservation; reads all the medical books about abstinence and frugality as the means of promoting long life, and practises rigidly upon their principles. John is equally tough and temperate. Neither shows the least sign of giving out for fifty years to come. Both have increased in substance and have the reputation of being "forehanded." The insurance table has been reduced to the very last fraction; but, spite of its scientific accuracy, seems to be one of those rules that are proved by their exceptions.
Mrs. Niles is the most devoted of wives, the perfection of step-mothers, and rejoices, besides, in a chubby little boy of her own. All the seven are united in neglecting no opportunity to rise up and call her blessed.
Sixty. Ditto—only more so.
Seventy. The Ghosts?
Yes, indulgent reader, your patience hath had its perfect work, if it hath brought you through all these preceding pages, in order that you may witness this denouement scene, in which the ghosts appear, with such real and startling semblance in the eyes of some of our actors, that, in comparison, the fifth act of a sensation drama would have seemed mild as milk.
It is to see these supernatural visitants that we have brought you all this long road. Let them show themselves but once, and we will then be content, nay glad, to drop our curtain, retire from the footlights, and whisk our actors back to the serene shades of private life. Grant us, for a little time, the gifts of conjurers and "meejums." Let our Asmodeus take you in charge, and show you things that are beyond the range of mere mortal perception. Ubiquity shall be yours while you journey into the land of spirits, and the name of the mischievous wizard and terrible practical joker who conducts you thither shall be Jack Niles.
For we omitted to mention, in its appropriate connection, that when Molly found herself laid under the responsibility of naming her boy, she was debarred from bestowing on him that of his father, since it had been previously appropriated among the six, and her artistic sense revolted from starting the poor, helpless innocent out in the world under the honored designation of Zophar Tupper, which his grandfather had borne with such eminent respectability. And so, being influenced by the tender grace of motherhood, and desirous of showing her kind feeling towards the man whom she had once so loved and had now so freely forgiven, she felt that she could do it in no more expressive way than by calling her baby John Avery. The compliment was appreciated, and there may still be seen, among the family treasures of the Niles tribe, a silver cup, of punchy form and curious workmanship, marked with the inscription "J. A. N. from J. A."
Jack the second grew up a tolerably correct copy of the boyhood of his namesake. He was gifted with the same gayety of temperament, and facility for getting into scrapes. It had happened more than once that heedless pranks of his had been leniently looked upon, and concealed or remedied by the considerate care of John the elder, who, spite of all the miserable warping and drying up of all his kindlier sympathies under the influence of that ever-impending possibility, still seemed to find a congenial satisfaction in the society of this frank, jolly youth, whose presence brought with it such an echo of his own once careless, joyous life.