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THERE were two little graves now by Margaret's,
and in the house two vacant chairs, and
two voices hushed, while Squire Russell
counted four children where he had numbered six, and
yet the unselfish man would hear of no delay to Dora's
marriage.

“Let it go on the same,” he said. “It will make me
feel better to know that there are around me some perfectly
happy ones.”

And so the day was appointed, and Bell and Mattie
were summoned again from Morrisville, whither the latter
had gone during the children's illness. Judge Verner
was lonely with both of his daughters absent, and as of
the two he was most accustomed to Bell, he would have
been quite content with having her back again if she had
not told him how Jessie had turned nurse to Squire Russell's
children, and was consequently in danger of taking
the disease. This roused him, and in a characteristic
letter to Jessie he bade her “not make a fool of herself
any longer by tending children with canker-rash and

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feeding them with sweetened water, but to pack up her traps
and come home.”

To this the saucy Jessie replied that “she should not
come home till she was ready; that the Judge could shut
up, and what he called sweetened water was quite as
strong as the medicine which once cured his colic so
soon.” Then, in the coaxing tone the Judge could never
resist, she added, “You know I'm just in fun, father,
when I talk like that, but really I must stay till after
Dora is married, and you must let me, that's a dear, good
old soul,” and so the “good old soul” was cajoled into
writing that Jessie might stay, adding in postscript,
“Bell tells me you say all sorts of extravagant things
about that widower, and this is well enough as long as
they mean nothing, but for thunder's sake don't go to
offering yourself to him in a streak of pity. A nice wife
you would make for a widower with six children,—you
who don't know how to darn a pair of stockings, nor make
a bed so that the one who sleeps the back side won't roll
out of the front. Mind, now, don't be a fool.”

“I wonder what put that idea into father's head,”
Jessie said, as she read the letter. “I would not have
Squire Russell, let alone offering myself to him. And I
do know how to darn socks. Any way, I can pull the
holes together, which is just as well as to put in a ball and
peek and poke and weave back and forth, and make lacework
of it just as Bell does. It's a real old-maidish

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trick, and I won't be an old maid anyhow, if I have to
marry Squire Russell,” and crushing the letter into her
pocket Jessie went dancing down the stairs, whistling
softly for fear of disturbing the sick children.

That afternoon Dora found her, with her face very red
and anxious, bending over a basket of stockings and
socks, which she was trying to darn after the method
most approved by Bell. “Clem had so much to do that
day,” she said, “that she had offered to help by taking
the darning off her hands.” But it was a greater task
than Jessie had anticipated, and Johnnie's aid was called
in before it was finished, the boy proving quite as efficient
as the girl, and as Clem secretly thought, succeeding
even better. This was before Letitia and Jimmie
died, and since their death the Judge had made no effort
to call her home, but suffered her to take her own course,
which she did by remaining in Beechwood, where they
would have missed her so much, and where, if she could
not darn socks neatly, she made herself generally useful
as the day for the wedding approached. It was arranged
to take place on Christmas Eve, and it was Jessie who
first suggested that the house should be trimmed even
more elaborately than the little church upon the common,
where the ceremony was to be performed. With Johnnie
as her prime minister, Jessie could accomplish almost
anything, and when their work was done, every one
joined heartily in praise of the green festoons and

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wreaths, on which were twined the scarlet berries of the
mountain ash, with here and there a blossom of purest
white, purloined from the costly flowers which Squire
Russell ordered in such profusion from the nearest hothouse.
Dora took but little part in the preparations.
She was very happy, but her joy was of that quiet kind,
which made her content to be still and rest, after the
turmoil and wretchedness through which she had passed.
The doctor was with her constantly, and to Jessie, who
saw the look of perfect peace upon his face and Dora's,
they seemed the impersonation of bliss, while even Bertie
noted the change in Dora, saying to her once as she sat
with the doctor:

“You don't look now, Auntie, as you did when you was
married to pa.”

Dora could only blush, while the doctor laughingly
tossed the little fellow upon his shoulder and carried him
off to the office. If Squire Russell suffered, it was not
perceptible, and Jessie thought he had recovered wonderfully,
while Dora, too, hoped the wound had not been so
deep as even to leave a scar. He was very kind and
thoughtful, remembering everything that was needful to
be done, and treating Dora as if she had been his daughter.
He wished her to forget the past; wished to forget
it himself; and by the cheerful, active course he took,
he bade fair to do so. He should give the bride away,
he said, and when Mattie Randall, to whom he was a

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study, asked kindly if he was sure he was equal to it, he
answered, “O yes, wholly so. I see now that Dora
would never have been happy with me. I should have
laid her by Madge in less than a year. I am glad it has
all happened as it has.”

He did seem to be glad, and when, on the night of the
24th, the little bridal party stood waiting in the parlor
for the carriages which were to take them to the church,
his face was as serene and placid as if he had never hoped
to occupy the place the doctor occupied. Through much
sorrow he had been tried and purified, until now in his
heart, always unselfish and kind, there was room for the
holier, gentler feelings which only the peace of God can
give. Not in vain had he in the solitude of his chamber
writhed and groaned over the crushing pang with which
he gave Dora up, while the tears wept over his dead
children were to him a holier baptism than any received
before, washing him clean and making him a nobleminded
Christian man. Margaret's grave had during
those autumn months witnessed many an earnest prayer
for the strength and peace which were found at last, and
were the secret of his composure. Just before the sunsetting
of Dora's bridal day, he had gone alone to the
three lonely graves and laid upon the longest the exquisite
cross of evergreen and white wax berries which Jessie's
fingers had fashioned for this very purpose, Jessie's
brain having been the first to conceive the plan. There

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was also a bouquet of buds for each of the smaller graves,
and Squire Russell placed them carefully upon the sod,
which he watered with his tears; then, with a whispered
prayer, he went back across the fields to where Dora, in
her bridal dress, was waiting, but not for him. He was
not the bridegroom, and he stood aside as the doctor
bounded up the stairs, in obedience to Jessie's call that
he should come and see if ever anybody looked so sweetly
as his bride, but charging him not to touch her lest some
band, or braid, or fold, or flower should give way.

“It won't be always so,” he said, standing off as Jessie
directed. “By and by she will be all my own, and then
I can hug her,—so!” and in spite of Jessie's screams, he
wound his arms around Dora's neck, giving her a most
emphatic kiss as his farewell to Dora Freeman. “When
I kiss you again you will be Dora West,” he whispered,
as he drew the blushing girl's arm in his, and led her
down the stairs.

The church was crowded to its utmost capacity, and it
was with some difficulty that the colored sexton had kept
a space cleared for the bridal party, which passed slowly
up the aisle, while the soft notes of the organ floated on
the air. Then the music ceased, and only the rector's
voice was heard, uttering the solemn words, “I require
and charge you both,” etc.; but there was no need for
this appeal, there was no impediment, no reason why
these two hearts, throbbing so lovingly, should not be

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joined together, and so the rite went on, while amid the
gay throng only one heart was heavy and sad. Robert
West, leaning against a pillar, could not forget another
ceremony, where he was one of the principal actors, while
the other was Anna, beautiful Anna, over whose head
the snows of many a wintry eve had fallen, and who but
for him might have been now among the living. He had
visited her grave and Robin's, had knelt on the turf
which covered them, and sued so earnestly for pardon,
had whispered to the winds words of deepest love and
contrition, as if the injured dead could hear, and then he
had gone away to seek the man whom he had so wronged,
and who for the brother's sake had kept his sin a secret.
Uncle Jason had forgiven him, had said that all was
right, that every trace of his error was destroyed, and
Robert had mingled fearlessly again among his fellowmen,
who, only guessing in part his guilt, and feeling intuitively
that he had changed, received him gladly into
their midst.

Summoned by his brother's letters, he had returned to
Beechwood, and now formed one of the party, who, when
the rite was over, went back to the brightly illuminated
house, where the Christmas garlands, the box, and the
pine, and the fir were hung, and where the marriage festivities
proceeded rationally, quietly, save as Jessie's birdlike
voice pealed through the house, as she played off her
jokes, first upon one and then another, adroitly trying to

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coax Bell and the young clergyman, Mr. Kelly, under
the mistletoe bough, and then screaming with delight as
her father and Mrs. David West were the first to pass
within the charmed circle. Jessie was alive with fun
and frolic, and making Bell sit down at the piano, she
declared that somebody should dance at Dora's wedding
if she had to dance alone.

“Take Johnnie,” Dora said, and the two were soon
whirling through the rooms, the boy's head coming far
above the black curls of the merry little maiden, who
flashed, and gleamed, and sparkled among the assembled
guests till more than one heart beat faster as it caught
the influence of her exhilarating presence.

Robert West dreamed of her that night; so did Mr.
Kelly, the rector; and so did Squire Russell; but the two
first forgot her again next morning, as each said good-by
to the handsome, stately Bell,—a far more fitting match
for either than the black-eyed sprite who for a moment
had made their pulses quicken. But not so with the
Squire. To him the house was very desolate when he
returned to it, after having accompanied the bride, and
groom, and guests to the cars, which all took for Morrisville,
whither they were going. It was Dora he missed,
the servants said, pitying him, he looked so sad, while he
too believed it was Dora; and still as he knelt that day
in church, there was beside him another face than Dora's,—
a saucy, laughing, face, which we recognize as

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belonging to Jessie,—who, at that very moment, while keeping
her companions in a constant turmoil and her father in
a constant scold, was thinking of him and saying mentally:

“Poor Squire Russell! how I pity him,—left there all
alone! and how I wonder if he misses me!”

p605-268

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