Page:Orange Grove.djvu/258

 heightened the flush on her cheeks, and gave rise to a merry laugh all round.

The cake was passed, but not the wine, and before the evening shadows gathered, the happy couple were enjoying themselves quietly in their own neat little parlor, where they were soon visited by Deacon Brewster and his wife, who came to offer their congratulations, bringing with them a refreshing draught of iced lemonade.

"What a pity," said Kate, as the carriage rolled down the avenue, "when the minister was all here and every things was ready, that it shouldn't have been all done up and saved the trouble of gettin' up another marryin'."

"You looked as white as a ghost, and trembled like a frightened bird when you took my arm," said Walter to Rosalind after they returned to the parlor, where she stood nervously opening and shutting her fan, looking neither grieved, vexed nor pleased, but the personification of childish helplessness, mutely appealing from one to the other without receiving the assistance it craved.

"And I stood on tiptoe ready to get the smellin' salts if you should faint," remarked Kate, intruding her head in the doorway.

"They do not know what it is to be so near becoming a bride do they," observed her mother, who was immediately succeeded by Walter with the remark.

"I guess, sis, you wish you hadn't been quite so officious to act a prominent part in the play yourself,—rather too real, wasn't it?"