THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
243 
ears, giving excited little yelps as the din waxes harder. 
A small man in the aisle close to the pulpit gradually 
works loose his arms, which are pinioned by the crush, 
and brings his hands together high above his head with 
a sounding concussion and the shrill cry, “Hoo-pee !” 
Tasso bolts through the nearest window, and flees 
into outer darkness. Cousin David laughs loud and 
long. 
“ Tasso thought the little man was ‘ sic-in ’ him,” he 
says. 
I cannot join in the laugh. Grotesque, absurd as the 
scene is, the tensity in the drawn faces of these poor en¬ 
thusiasts is too real and piteous. 
The female figure which I had noticed in the grave¬ 
yard whirls past, with streaming hair and uplifted amis. 
I have barely time to see she is young and well-favored, 
when she falls, almost at my feet. 
A gaunt miner, with blackened face and lamp in his 
cap, leisurely descends from his perch in the window, 
stoops over the woman, and raises her head. Cousin 
David’s kind heart prompts him to interfere, and he 
says: 
“ Take her out—she will be smothered in here.” 
“ Tain’t no use. Soon ez she cums to, she’ll be at it 
agin,” is the miner’s surly response; and, as he speaks, 
I recognize my partner of the tombstone. Finally, how¬ 
ever, he does carry the woman out, assisted by Cousin 
David. 
The spectacle lias grown intolerable ; I can bear it no 
longer. Surely, I think, Marguerite must also be eager 
to get away from it all. I lean forward and lay my 
hand upon her arm. She does not turn at my touch, 
and my gaze instinctively follows hers, which is fixed 
with a strange iutentness upon a singular-looking man 
across the aisle. 
He stands on a bench near a lamp ; the light falls full 
upon him, and I see him distinctly. A young man of 
medium height, remarkably slender, with peculiarly 
high, square shoulders. Long, dark hair, curling a little 
at the ends, nearly touches these high shoulders. His 
features clear-cut, delicate and pale bronze. One band 
rests in the breast of his closely-buttoned coat. His eyes 
are lowered upon the frantic crowd, and something like 
a sneer hovers about his sensitive, beardless lips. 
While my gaze rests upon his face his eyes are sud¬ 
denly turned on me. In my already overstrained 
nervousness, I am so startled I tighten my grasp on 
Marguerite’s arm, and almost cry out. The man’s eyes 
are the largest, the most luminous I have ever seen, and 
look absolutely white! So light are they in color—so 
strange in this smooth, dark face. 
“Who is it, Marguerite?”--the words break uncon¬ 
sciously from my lips. ‘ ‘ Who is that young man across 
the aisle?” 
She does not turn or reply, only shivers. 
Just then Cousin David beckons us from the door. 
Slowly, and with difficulty, we make our way out and 
start homeward. We are rather a silent party. There 
is a faint breeze now, and flying clouds obscure the stars 
in the purple sky. 
At a bend in the road a horseman passes us. Horse 
and rider flit by, like spectres in the black shade of the 
trees; but, swiftly as they go, I catch a glimpse of a 
peculiar, higli-shouldered form, and my smouldering 
curiosity breaks out: 
“Who is that roan?” 
No one replies. Mrs. Easten is asleep, I conclude, 
from the dangerous manner in which she wabbles over 
the wheels. 
Marguerite is silent. 
Her father turns his head toward her, and with some 
surprise repeats the question. Then she answers: 
“ Millard Reeve.” 
Next morning we are down stairs before the house¬ 
hold is awake. We wander through the large, old-fash¬ 
ioned garden. The morning is close and warm, and the 
odor of the flowers is almost overpowering—not alone 
the spicy, aromatic sweetness of myriad Roses and pene¬ 
trating, far-reaching, perfume of the Honeysuckle, but 
the rich, heavy fragrance of a long row of stately Lilies. 
In the years that follow, whenever this time comes 
back to me, I smell those Lilies again. 
I have never seen so many together. There is a long 
row almost across the lower side of the garden, close 
against the hedge which surrounds'it. 
Through the close greenness of the hedge can be 
seen the yellow water of the river creeping hourly 
higher. 
Sweet-voiced and smiling, Mrs. Easton comes to give 
us a gay good-morning, and lead the way to break¬ 
fast. 
I proffer my assistance toward preparation for the 
wedding, and am eagerly seconded by Madame: “Is 
there nothing we can do ? Is the trousseau quite com¬ 
plete ?” 
“ I don’t know—I think so. A woman down in town 
—the dressmaker—went to Cairo for my things. Mother 
hadn’t time to go. I suppose they are done.” 
This is said with languid indifference, while Marguerite 
still gazed listlessly through the Honeysuckle. 
Of course I ask what the wedding dress is to 
be. 
“A white brocade. Mother chose that from the 
samples sent us, because it reminded her of a gown in 
a great picture she had seen abroad.” 
I glance sharply at the gild’s pale face, but she is 
quite earnest; and I begin to think this wondrously 
beautiful creature rather a dull person—with small sense 
of humor, certainly. 
The rest of the morning is passed in our own cool, 
Rose-scented chamber; and in the afternoon Cousin 
David drives his wife, Madame and me into town. Our 
route is circuitous, and we are able in this way to avoid 
the deepest water; yet the wheels dip and lurch alarm¬ 
ingly at times. 
Cousin David draws up the horses, that we may view 
at our leisure what to us is a novel scene. A cross 
street just in front is much lower than that upon which 
the carriage stands, and the water much deeper. It is 
covered with craft of various and novel kinds. Among 
the latter is what Cousin David informs iis is called a 
“ gunnel”—a long flat log, propelled by a pole. Hereand 
there is a skiff ; one comes suddenly round a corner; is 
rowed up to the steps of a building near, and a tall man 
springs from the boat to the steps. 
“ Hello, Granger! ” Cousin David calls; “baekalittle 
sooner than you expected 1” 
We are presented to the bridegroom elect, who stands 
bowing, hat in hand, upon the steps. 
How red his hail 1 looks, with the sunshine upon it I 
And a long red beard ! Why shouldn’t he have red hair 
