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 CHAPTER XIV.

WEDDED.

It was the seventeenth of October—the wedding day at "Ashland." Little ruffles of south wind blew out of a fair sky, breathing the air of simplicity into grandeur. Up among the ivy leaves, a couple of birds flashed and sang. But indoors, people were so mightily interested in a pair of unwinged lovers, that these two sang their song out, and then flew away unheard.

Carriages bearing guests to the wedding were already rolling past. Those who alighted were the intimate friends. No stranger's curious stare would fall upon this scene to contrast with its fairness. No shadow was necessary to the harmony of it.

Robert stood at an upper window, and his eyes fell upon the matted honey-suckle where Cherokee had first lifted so sad a face to him—so sad, that, though the first throb of grief awakened by his mother's death had scarcely yet been stilled, he forgot his own sorrow in the effort to bring happiness again to her—his living love. How his words of tenderness had made her face soft like the late