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The Bird of Paradise

Chapter XV. The Return of Brosie by the Good Ship Mararona Bringing in the Sheaves. The Wedding of the Paradisal Bride

Chapter XV. The Return of Brosie by the Good Ship Mararona Bringing in the Sheaves. The Wedding of the Paradisal Bride.

The sunbright morning shed its radiance upon the cattle browsing and lowing upon the green, the twittering of sparrows on the roof, the waving ash, the pine, the myrtle, the laurel and the red-berried arbutus, as the smoke drifts from the hospital chimneys wafted skywards, and Marvel accompanied by the chaperoning auntie found their way to the hospital residence about eleven.

Eugene himself opened the door and bowed before the congratulating incense of auntie. The naming of the day of days was discussed at great length, and there seemed to be a consensus of opinion that there was no need for delay. The house was ready, the doctor was lonely, and Marvel generously asked that he should fix the day himself, so that all he had to do was to prepare himself for the wrenching away from Hemlock for good. The arrangements about wedding-cards and other preliminaries for the marriage were to be entrusted for the most part to Marvel and her relations, the doctor undertaking the task of writing a letter to secure the attendance of the Reverend Paul Hayman. Everything, in fact, was duly planned out and agreed upon, when Marvel suddenly, and seemingly without premeditation, thought of the ring which he had given her. Holding out her hand, "I don't like this ring you bought," she said, her lips curving into an expressive pout; "couldn't you give me a thicker one." He replied that he had not bought it himself, but had asked the old housekeeper, Hemlock, to buy it for him, and that probably she had bought one to suit herself; but he promised to buy a thicker one himself to make sure it was thick enough for Marvel.

"You had better keep the one you have in the meantime," exclaimed the old auntie in a little scare; "a bird (long breath) in the hand (long breath) is worth two (long breath) in the bush (long breath)." She went on further to remark that she was a witness to the contract, in case there should be any breach on his part. The first of September was fixed as the day sacred to the marriage, deo volente, and the two self-complacent ladies left the scene, the old auntie still fawning upon Marvel in her suave and silky ways.

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The signal event in Eugene's life could not decorously be enacted without the added grace of the much-travelled gentleman Brosie. He had left Chicago in July on a short tour around the United Kingdom, so that the first of September would, taking into account the time fixed for his embarkation from Plymouth, be certain to find him present at the marriage ceremony, and probably standing as best-man for his brother.

Letters were sent to old Christopher Whitworth, and with Dolly they bustled their arrangements to acquit themselves in becoming style at the marriage. The dutiful Dolly, with the fancy dress ball again in his mind, brushed up the brass-bound suit which he always reserved for state occasions in order to lend a variety to the scene by appearing, not in his high-seas rolling and swaggering about on the coal-fields.

The Mararona was signalled off the Florida Keys on the twenty second, and gave the æsthetic Ambrose plenty of time to adorn himself and parade the embellishments which he had received at the hands of the Generals of the United States army of independence or salvation, and the lofty-minded staff of the Chicago Dental College, Apricot Street. He arrived on the twenty-fourth.

Into the multiple mouth of the Mississippi, with its multitudinous bays and promontories, past the choice sandstone villas, almost dipping down on the sandy shore, majestically sailed the swift Mararona and glided into her berth on the Mississippi Quay, where, when his marine friendships were severed, all that was required for disembarkation was to step ashore into the heart of the city. Down the accommodation-ladder he stepped with a sailor of the good ship Mararona bringing in the sheaves, singing tempo moderato, Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves: the good ship Mararona bringing in the sheaves.

His proud father and anxious mother had hailed the day when they were to meet him and help him to carry home the sheaves. The sheaves were shown the light of day in the customs-house, and proved to be an enormous Yankee trunk or travelling box, containing two dirty shirts, three holey socks and three well varnished handkerchiefs, while the cleanest end of the fourth stuck out from his pocket beside the butt-end of a "little persuader." "Montes laborantur parturiet riduculus mus;" but wait—wait till he produces that long tin can like a spy-glass, and he spreads out that scroll of parchment on the table of the nearest inn, and calling for two long cock-tails and a small glass of sherry, displays the all-important certificate of a Doctor of Dental Surgery of the greatest college in creation, and tells his father that if that air not the correct ticket he guesses and calc'lates he could ride him on a rail.

On the morning of the first of September old Mr. Whitworth, who took all things aux serieux, surrounded by an old-fashioned frock coat, fitting so tight that he looked as if he had been born in it, and on his main-top a napless bell-topper that once the cat had kittens in, together with Dolly in the ruse of a midshipman and Brosie in a ready-made suit page 91with a lavender boutonnière, a shirt-front like the breast of a pouter pigeon, milky blue gloves, and tight-fitting boots, proceeded in the van of the goods train to Maconville, the compartment supposed to be sacred to members of the legislature, railway employées, their wives and manifold connexions.

Oh! day of days! as with new silk hat, fashionable black surtout and a pink rosebud in the button-hole, stood the resident surgeon of the provincial hospital on the verandah of his residence as his relations arrived. Strong, vigorous and active, he looked in the pink of health and condition; while his well-chiselled features and his bright blue eyes gave him quite a distinguished and attractive appearance. Since he had left the schools of science, the out-door life seemed to have tinted his face and he looked even younger than he often did then, wearing as was his custom no beard or moustache. Were not those woods more free from peril than the envious court? Above him the soft siroccos breathed through the jessamine as it trained its delicate branches into a thick roof of silken green, while far away, folded in a silver or purple haze, the quiet hills still doze and dream; the crimson-crowned olive green woodpecker creeps like a lizard up the bark of the hollow pine-tress and slides down again like a sailor down a rope, busily tapping and harking for the sounds of wood-burrowing insects; the skylark rings his clear carol above the tall yellow corn, and the cuckoo calls from the silence of the wood. It was a glimpse of the summer of the heart.

Into the carriage he stepped, attended by his father and brothers, when a hailstorm of rice and a shower of white roses from the hospital nurses covered them over and whitened the floor. Crack went the whip, and the two bright bays, with Rosie in the lead, pranced down the hill, with pink and white streamers from their bridles; while, conscious of the red-letter day, with a pink and white ribbon around his neck, a handsome tawny St. Bernard with a tail like a flag ran with its tongue lolling out showing them the way, or washing the splash off the ribbon at every roadside pond. He had been provided as a companion in the stable to Moss Rose, while Rosie had to be content with the cat. Entering the coal-mining town they were hailed with salutes and cheers, and driving past the land-and-life-marking canary-pine, they heard the peals of wedding bells in the church of All Saints. They alighted on the footpath, thronged with spectators and guests. Straight to the church doors gambolled the frolicsome St. Bernard and barked his joyous, hilarious way to the altar to take up his proper position at Eugene's heels. Filled to overflowing the chapel, in the all-pervading silence of the building stood Eugene and his brother before the high altar of All Saints awaiting the coming of Marvel.

Gold-mounted harness was bound around her white carriage-horses, and the shimmering blue of the peacock fluttered on the breeze from every coign of vantage. Conspicuous amongst the gorgeous pageantry, the richest landau in the country had been obtained by her father, when, as page 92the proudly rearing steeds halted at the gates of All Saints, the coachman sat on his hammercloth, while a footman alighted to open the door for the glorious bride.

The church was beautifully decorated: an arch of white flowers spanning the chancel between the choir stalls, large palms being placed at the sides; while the pulpit, reading-desk and font were also adorned with lilies of the valley, white lilac and other spring blossoms. To the singing by the choir and congregation of "The voice that breathed o'er Eden," through the spell-bound throng of spectators the white-robed bird of the sun walked with aerial steps upon the white gravelled shells of the flower-strewn path, and adown the bright crimson carpeted aisle, enveloped in a long, white, misty, cylindrical tulle veil, and wearing a dress of rich white satin, trimmed with chiffon and Maltese lace, which was arranged around the shoulders and fell in cascades down each side of the front to the hem, a narrow wreath of orange blossoms nestling like a crown in the rich clusters of her ebony hair. Her ornaments were a diamond and turquoise necklace, a diamond and sapphire bracelet, a diamond and cornelian heart-brooch and a diamond arrow, and her shower bouquet was composed of orchids, roses and orange blossoms. Her train was carried by two tiny pages in white satin, with white buckles on their white satin shoes and at the knees. Then came six bridesmaids in white silk, with chiffon fichus, with silver waist-belts, and straw hats trimmed with lilac and blue ostrich tips. As the bride waited in perfect silence and suspense, the rich tones of anthems resounded, echoing through those hallowed halls, and the exalted bird of heaven stood on the left hand of her betrothed in the crisis of her life to fill her longed-for part in the office of holy matrimony.

Oh! joy supernal! as princess-like she stood, for her father had spared no expense with her costumiére, and few brides ever looked more ethereal and dazzling than Marvel. The adamantine chain of consecrated marriage was welded and fitted around those concomitant lives before their eyes, and amidst two thousand witnesses to its making. "Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thou only unto him so long as ye both shall live?" and Marvel said "I will," in firm and unmistakable tones in the presence of the Almighty Father, the best maker of all marriages, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient Architect of the Universe.

The extolled, exultant bird of Paradise, the bird of Heaven, the bird of the sun and the air, was yoked together with Eugene as Eugene's wife for evermore. Made so beneath the throne of her Creator and her Redeemer; made so by one of His consecrated workers at the foot of His divine altar, and in His holy house; made one with Eugene—one in body, one in spirit, no matter who should say Nay; one in joy and sorrow, one in health and vigor, and one in sickness and mortality; one for better fortune, one for worse fortune: to stand by Eugene, to cling to him alone, and to page 93forsake all other, till death claimed one or other, parted the links of God's chain and dissolved His own handiwork; in holy harmony to live with Eugene and to leave her father and her mother, come weal or come woe.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost I join this man and this woman in the holy bonds of matrimony. Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," intoned the servant, the minister of the divine Saviour Himself, and none seemed to be more impressed with the beauty and grandeur of that God-sent ceremony to man than did Marvel, the newly-made wife herself, who seemed to have solemnly pledged her troth to live with Eugene as faithfully as did Rebecca with Isaac of old.

The great and mighty speculator, who boasted that for forty years he had not seen the inside of that church or any other church or chapel, quailed before that throne of God as his infidel hands transferred his daughter to the minister. Away from the altar slowly down the long aisle they walked together, the church organ bursting forth its ecstasies in the wedding march of Mendelssohn, and Marvel en rapport with Eugene.

The wedding breakfast had been catered for by the French concierge of the town. His hotel was close to the church, and he had procured a French chéf from the city; so it was no surprise to the wedding party to find a gorgeously-decorated dancing hall turned into the welding breakfast room, and adorned with flowering festoons, wreaths, garlands and banners of all the colours of the rainbow around a well-spread board, decorated in alternate chains and baskets, carried out in gold orchids, the baskets being filled with mauve flowers, and lyre decorations of scarlet anthuriums with white foliage; the features of the menu being sole au gratin, rognons sautés aux champignons, perdrix roti au cresson, crème à la menagere, entrecote à la Paràdise, vol au vent à la financière, petites timbales de gibier, chapons en demi-deuil, and other works of art.

Some of the doctor's cavalry regiment attended in uniform, adding variety and charm to the gathering; while all the medical men of the district and several scientists from the city formed quite a large cotérie and a semi-scientific congress of their own.

The member of the State Legislature for the district, a suave and plausible bloat-cheeked man with a pointed imperial black beard, discoursed on the subject of the bifurcated skirt and the changing woman then doffing crinolines; while the parson undertook, if one of them came to the town, to heave half a brick at her himself.

One ugly Quilp-like dwarf—a real dwarf and smaller than Augustus—an old object who was also an old identity of the town, perched himself on the back of the chair, with his ear in his hand, sheltering it from all other disturbing sounds, and pulling the wing of it out close to the mouth whence flowed the wisdom of the oracle. Augustus was four feet one, but this was a much better dwarf—he was three feet nothing. He was a tobacco-planter, and anticipated some revelations about ad valorem taxation, which indeed the loquacious member at one time threatened to touch upon: the salient page 94feature, however, in his declamation being the dangerous political woman. He soared into the giddy heights of a peroration on the sublimity of the fair sex in general, and the bird of Paradise, Heaven, the sun and the air, in particular, while the dowdy, glum, coffee-pot shaped Mrs. Gould frowned savagely at everybody or twirled her thumbs under the tablecloth, sitting demure as quakeress.

The bridegroom arose in state to thank the company for their good wishes towards himself and his wife, interpolating his gratitude with a few points about the training and running of racehorses in general, and Moss Rose in particular, and reciprocating the good wishes of everybody outside and inside the hall. He was cheered to the echo; when the great and mighty rock-boring, belt-driving, air-compressing speculator rose to deliver himself of a speech, which the garrulous member of the State Legislature had written out for him, but which he had entirely forgotten. Stumbling over a few disconnected sentences, he seemed to be, metaphorically speaking, coming out of the same hole as he went in through, and actually rose three times to return thanks for the great honour which they were doing him by sucking down his champagne and gourmandising his entrecote à la Paradise and his chapons en demi-deuil.

The flowery and balmy Ambrose, en fête for the festival, with an American twang, which he had not stayed long enough in Chicago to closely imitate, gave the circumspect gathering an approximate idea as to how he had seen barmaid wedding-luncheons conducted in Chicago; how he had performed the miracles, he might say himself alone, and had entertained five hundred and ninety-nine of his fellow tooth-merchants at one sitting, when Michigan cock-tails were considered the real "muck-high," although all the time he was looking very wistfully at the popping bottles of champagne.

The Christy minstrel midshipman rendered without music what he called Offenbach's "Good on yer Mary Ann." The effect was electrical. The party broke up. Eugene led his wife outside the luncheon hall. Turning around to get his hat, he noticed she was drawn into the passage, and on looking to ascertain the cause of the wire-pulling performance, he found it was not a wire-pulling performance, but an osculatory performance, because he found a lob-lolly of a boy saluting the bird of the sun with a prolonged and slobbering juicy kiss. He had never had the pleasure of meeting the young Adonis before, and at the moment imagined him to be some long-lost brother, cousin, or other relative; but subsequently finding he had no more than an Adam and Eve relationship with the paradisal bride, and fancying the episode was an apologue of former love-passages between them, the steady thermometer of his love experienced a temporary fall.

While the merry-making and festivities of that wedding luncheon-hall continued in hilarious clamour at the hotel, at the foot of her beloved son's grave in St. Martin's knelt Miriam, her hands clasped in prayer and with her eyes uplifted to Heaven, breathing as of old the orison—"Teach us to page 95love one another in Thee and for Thee, and in the world to come unite us at Thy feet, where peace and love are perfect and everlasting." None knew his mother better than Eugene, and he least of all expected that she would desert that grave for a wedding-feast. Wrapt in prayer, and happy in the chanting of litanies, she had spent most of the day under the shadow of the tomb, for her sweetest thoughts were those that told of saddest hours.

After a short adjournment to the old home of the bride, where she exchanged her dress for a golden brown cashmere, a brown velvet cape with biscuit-coloured silk, a rough, brown straw hat with blue ostrich feathers, roses and wall-flowers, the newly-married couple partook of a parting glass of wine, and noticed that the little table was literally covered with the dead marine bottles of gold-topped Moët and Chandon, giving an off-hand guess that fully one hundred and fifty were on view, all of which Mrs. Gould intended to stick bottom-up in the garden for borders.

Into the carriage in which he had come from Augusta, with his mare Rosie in the lead, he showed his young and excited wife, and soon they were on the high road across the sunlit plains to Augusta, where they caught the train to the city on their honeymoon trip by land and sea.

Where the bee sucks in the flowery dell: where the tempest-tossed fisherman moors his cockle-shell craft by the crisping, curling, plashing wave, and along the silvery milk-white shore, there lurked the Bird of Paradise side by side with her husband, soaring on the pinions of her love for him.

Happy princess following him she seemed to be. What cloud could cross that azure sky? What rift could break the lute-music of her sunny life? What storm could burst over that cloudless dome? What blemish could mar the empyreal architecture of her bright horizon? He studied her ways, her fancies and caprices. He pandered to her whims, and Marvel was the whimsical of the whimsical. He drew out plans for her gaiety and amusement, and, like Alexis, he piloted the bird of Heaven through the vistas of his devotion, and among the nooks and crannies of her paradisal realm.

Three weeks had they spent on their honeymoon holidays; all was peace and bliss and a continuous glow of mirth and pleasure. He introduced his wife to the great magnates of the city, the most eminent surgeons, and led her back again to the library, the quadrangle, the museum and the halls of the college, where his old master had invited them to a musical evening. They reclined on the seats by the orange and pomegranate trees and lolled on the green knolls in the gardens, while the lovelight glowed, flashed and scintillated from the lustrous eyes of his paradisal bride.

"Is there anything more I can do before we go home to please you Marvel?" he asked.

"No," she replied; "I am walking over paths of roses ever since we were married, and I'm as happy as the day is long."

"I only had a month's leave from the hospital." he said, "and I must go back this week; but before going back I would like to see my poor mother, page 96as she did not come to the wedding, so if you like to come she will be delighted to see us, and the day after we will leave for home."

"Wherever you go I will go with you," she replied and they both embarked in the steamer for Galveston. From the quarter-deck of the Hyacinth, abreast on the swing of the rolling main, he pointed out to his spouse the scene of the cockspur of the blue and glamorous Colorado ranges, and as they entered the bight the somnolent city of Galveston—the marble shrines of monuments from afar gleaming white over the sunny sea—and the tomb where his brother lay and his mother had watched every evening through all the fallen years.

The first to meet and greet them as the steamer glided into her berth at the pier was the erstwhile midshipman—the faithful and magnanimous Dolly—and, judging by his appearance, a Christy minstrel play had just concluded or had for some time been on the tapis. Holding out his grimy arms, as she stepped from the accommodation-ladder he saluted the bride with overwhelming cordiality. "Halloa! there Marvel! how are you getting on? I got a chap to take my place wiping for an hour, to come down and meet you at the wharf; excuse my rig-out, as we get no time to wash in this company's service. What'll you do Eugene—get a cab, eh?" The sunny dreams of the bird of Paradise changed all at once after the electrical outburst into a hideous nightmare, and the rose-strewn paths became a slushy coal-pit as the effusive welcome of the big-hearted Dolly was shot into the delicately-toned ears of the musical Marvel.

"Oh! Never mind getting a cab; I think I would enjoy the walk, if it's not far," she said softly, yet significantly.

Thereupon with his brawny arms he encircled her portmanteaux, and hoisting them aloft on his shoulders, he trudged on by her paradisal side. Had he not been so well-known in the town it would not have been so bad, but there wasn't a boy in the neighbourhood that hadn't been to school with him, and at every corner they holloáed out—"Halloa Marlin' Spike, where did you shake the girl from?" "Whose mother is she?" "Good old Mary Ann!" "Shiver her timbers," "Cock-a-doodle-do!" and such like bantering salutations. Those funny boys got it hot—red hot—next day.

After about three minutes' walk, as their destination lay on the strand of the bay, they reached Lily Cottage, and entered the old home of Eugene's boyhood, where oft the breaking day had peeped in through the lattice of the window upon the labouring Eugene and his school-books, and where, suspended over the mantelpiece, conspicuous on the wall hung an oil painting of poor Gordon, and a large enameled photograph of the grave.

The head of the household made the bride welcome with an elaborately gushing osculation. He received the gorgeous bird with open arms literally, and marshaled in the mournful Miriam from the kitchen, where she was preparing a great feast of eggs and bacon for the occasion. At first she seemed to be a trifle jealous of the denouément of the bird, looking as if she wanted to know what right it had marrying one of her page 97boys; but by nature overcome with anxiety to please all and sundry, from the pauper at the door to the cadging parson in the parlour, she bustled about the house, with one eye on the frying-pan and the other on the bird of the sun.

The disgust of Brosie at the unseemly haste took a musical turn. After numerous 'fairy tales,' told with a graphic touch in order lo give reality to the narratives, his select vocabulary of Chicago idioms and mannerisms running short, he exhumed from a pile of old music a thumb-soiled piece which he had learnt from a sedate old maid before he left for Lake Michigan, and placing it on the music-frame of the tin-kettling piano he played moderato "The exercise for three fingers of the left hand." This overture being achieved with uncommon accuracy, he grew emboldened because Marvel said "Thank you, Dr. Ambrose," and hauled out another sample from the ragged stack in the corner. It happened to be an anthem about goats at the pool of Siloam and in the valley of Sidon, and yet another of Macfarren's oratorio, "This is my beloved son" and "Repent ye:" yet another—"How pants the hart for the cooling streams;" so carefully explaining that he did not suppose she liked sacred music and would not inflict it upon her, he pitched it back on the rubbish heap, and displayed the volume and pitch of his voice, without the assistance of the music, single-handed and single-throated. He had papillomata or crops of tiny elevations growing upon the vocal chords of his larynx and interfering greatly with the timbre, the vibration of the true chords and the consequent resonance of his voice. Nevertheless he gave her a song like "Bally-hooley" and the bird said "thank you" again; whereas Dally opened the door of the kitchen, and amidst the crackling and hissing of the bacon and eggs on the fire he sang out with (he force of a pile-driver—"Shut up, you blairing ass: she can knock spots off that, you bet. Tie it up and give her a breeze."

Marvel, however, took everything in good part, and Eugene, who never forgot the old house at home, was pleased to see her assimilate with his relations: and indeed he thought that if it came to a matter of invidious comparison they were quite as good and in many ways better than her own. Amidst all the gratification, however, there was a fly in the ointment for Marvel.

Amongst other visitors who called at Lily Cottage to view and criticise the bride came one Jonathan Scatter, the next door neighbour and owner of Lily Cottage, bringing his prudish, methodical wife. They came in the back way. There were very few in the town who knew that his name was Jonathan Scatter. He was rarely called by his own name, but by a name which he had acquired by a peculiar habit which alt his life he had cultivated—the habit of annexing anything lying about the place which might at any time prove to be handy or useful, or that might save him the trouble of buying it—such as a chisel with the handle beaten away, a few screws, the head of an old hammer, a broken foot-rule, an old blacking brush, a new flower or a fancy flower-pot, a picture, a book—any sort of book—a page 98few sheets of foolscap, a door-mat. Everything was a fish in his net. The first two words he learned to write at school were "have" and "take." His pockets were as capacious as those of a mandarin, and his jew-like propensities in general, as he seldom bought anything and invariably bartered something for it, obtained for him the sobriquet of "glue-pat Ike." In due course of time by inflexibly sticking to the guiding maxim of annexing anything that came in his way, never parting with money if he could avoid doing so, but invariably swopping something which he had pilfered for something out of his reach, apart altogether from the question of its being something needful, he succeeded in hoarding together, under cover of an old shed, a more curious collection than could be found in any pawnshop in London. He had among a congeries of oddities a row of thirty-three glue-pots, each glue-pot stamped on the bottom with the brand of timber-yard where he was employed, and where he had ample scope for his peculations. No man ever got the best of him in a bargain; but with wonderful finesse and great judgment in making a deal, he took them all in and he took them all down, without one solitary exception. He was a real hard case, and a bête noir to Brosie in the dog days and the troublous years to come.

No sooner had "glue-pot Ike" appeared in the precincts of Lily Cottage at any time than whoever espied him first would announce the visit to the others, when, as if a sparrow-hawk had alighted and stood coolly perching himself on the fence of a fowl-yard while he counted the number of chickens, took stock of their comparative sizes, and reconnoitred the collection for any formidable game-cock, the company in Lily Cottage would scatter each fowl to a position where he could have a bird's-eye-view of the hawk, and so defend his own belongings from his depredations. His wife, a prim, genteel, slender goody-goody, with an enormous black fringe, had in her prenuptial days been a dress-maker. She knew as much about quills, tucks, pleats and frills, the language of flowers and the various brands of a bottle of scent as any milliner in the kingdom. To all her airy frills the Bird of Paradise seemed to turn a deaf ear, and treated her with less courtesy than the others, probably opining that her husband's own blood relations were enough, and most of her forbearance was devoted to them. The good supercilious lady had brought a bouquet of flannel flowers, orchids and boronia, but piqued at the coldness of the bird of the sun at glue-pot Ike's suggestion she resolved to take it home again, for which little manœuvre she was ever after treated by Marvel with sovereign contempt, recognised by the some-time milliner with an acid smile on her nether lip whenever they happened to be in the same street. Her airy frills, too, annoyed Marvel, for it was a crime to emulate the ostentatious bird.

While the substantial repast was in a sort of transition state on the table, the hawk showed his presence among the pigeons in the dove-cote, and the usual flight from the room was made upon the sudden alarm, so that the bird of the sun was left with her husband, the hawk and the hawk's mate, page 99wondering what could be the cause of the mustering pigeons and the clattering plates, the hurried stampede from the dining-room and the quick forming in the ranks of the sentry-guards. Rummaging about the room for a while, and seeing nothing he had not fossicked about before, the hawk withdrew to the back and appeared to be looking around quite unconcerned. All the time, however, he was prospecting for something he thought wanted "weeding out." Out came the terrified pigeons from their hiding places, and deputed one of their number to watch closely his movements; but not seeing anything which he could comfortably slip into his pocket, and in a manner afraid of the censure of his straight-laced puritanical wife, the hawk prepared to leave, whereupon the rising Chicago dentist offered to accompany him to the hymn of "Shall I go home empty-handed." The signification was well understood, for, as he leaned against the jamb of the door and watched Brosie over his shoulder, the hawk retorted that Brosie had as much sense as a sucking calf. With his mate and the bouquet he took his departure, while the outposted Dolly returned by the back way, and upheaving the sigh of one whose toils on earth were over—a most elaborate, prolonged and deep suspiration—announced that there was nothing sticking to Ike, insomuch he had watched him safely off the premises through the side gate. Thereupon the flutter in the dove-cote subsided.

Odds and ends of various pastimes and pleasantries passed away the evening, and Eugene with Marvel left Lily Cottage for the hotel, as there was a scarcity of house-room at the time. They journeyed home to Augusta by the morning train.

Arrived in the bridal home, be found his poor old Hemlock had migrated back to the hospital building, and her place usurped by the chronic broncho-asthmatical auntie, together with a new servant, as ugly and repulsive a creature as he ever saw in his employ. Mrs. Gould had also taken up her quarters in the residence, and had assisted the afflicted auntie in the redisposition of the furniture and the general turning of the house upside down. The ormulu marble clock was relegated to the kitchen, and the spurred-leggings thrown out into the shed. Looking in through the stable door with Mrs. Gould, his very nice mother-in-law caught sight of an innocent little swallow's nest, and saying that "they things were jist as bad as sparrers," she volunteered to climb up, if he liked, "screw their necks and putch them oot on the dung-hill."