"Oh, no,—Annie will be so disappointed! I can hunt her up and be back here before Miss Merton is prepared for the occasion"; and I started for the door, but the will stronger than my own recalled me.
"Sandy, pray reflect a moment, and you will attempt nothing of the kind. They leave in the eight o'clock train, and will be married some time about sunset. In the interval you could never go and return from Warren on any other horse than Mr. Lang's, and I suppose you would not expect your little friend to ride before you. Besides, we have been busy to-day planning other matters, and the final decorations have not been thought of. You are the very one to make the proper disposition of light and shade, flowers, etc."
"Miss Darry, do call in Mr. Leopold to gather flowers and pull the shades up or down, and let me try at least to find Annie," I answered, impatiently.
But she only replied,—
"Mr. Leopold! why, you innocent youth, he hasn't half your artistic capacity. I can see how you reverence him; but trust me, it is only from the innate modesty of your nature."
"He exhausted the fanciful region in which I dwell years ago, Miss Darry, and has gone up higher. You surely must see you undervalue his great nature."
"I see nothing just at present, Sandy, but the need of your assistance," she replied.
And by various devices she busied me until the arrival of the minister and the few intimate friends banished all further thought of Annie's regret at not being present. Miss Merton's loveliness and Mr. Lang's manly beauty made a picture I would gladly have studied longer than the time required to make them man and wife. I had long ago seen the ceremony performed by Mr. Purdo for a rustic couple; but this was a new and more fascinating phase of it. Impressed as I was apt to be by anything appealing to my emotions or sense of beauty, I did not care to join at once Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold, who engaged in their customary repartee directly after the bride retired to prepare for her journey; but Miss Darry, slipping away from Mr. Leopold, soon joined me on the lawn, to which I had stepped from the French window.
"What a serious expression, Sandy! One might imagine you had been making all these solemn promises yourself. You must learn not to be so easily affected by forms and symbols. It is a weakness of your poetic temperament. Their love has existed just as truly all these months as now; yet I never saw you grow serious over the contemplation of it, until a minister consecrated it by prayer and address."
I started.