"Kissed Robert Campbell's bride. Surely you are joking, Mr. St.

Claire."

"No, it is a common thing in English churches after the bridal ceremony if the minister is a friend. It was a solemn and affecting sight."

"Then her father did not marry her?"

"He gave her away. He could not have performed the ceremony in the parish church."

"Do you mean that she was not married in her father's church?"

"She was married in the parish church, one of the most beautiful places of worship I was ever in--a grand old edifice."

"Do you mean that my son was married in an Episcopal church, at the very horns of an Episcopal altar?" asked Mrs. Campbell indignantly.

"It was the most beautiful marriage service I ever saw. And the sweet old bells chimed so joyously, I can never forget them."

"Was there a wedding breakfast?" asked Isabel.

"About twenty guests sat down to a very prettily decorated breakfast table, and after the meal, Robert and his bride began their journey through life together. I have brought you some bride cake," and he took from a box in his hand three smaller white boxes, tied with white ribbon, and presented them. Mrs. Campbell laid hers unopened on the table without a word of thanks or courtesy, and Isabel and Christina followed her example.

"There was a crowd at the railway station," continued Mr. St. Claire, "and the Blue Coat Boys met the bride singing a wedding-hymn. Robert gave them a n.o.ble check for their school."

"I'll warrant he did. The more fool he!"

"And the last thing they heard as they left Kendal must have been the church bells chiming joyfully--'_Hail, Happy Morn_'!"

"Do you know where they went? Robert was not sure when he left Scotland."

"I think I do, Mrs. Campbell. They had intended going through the Fife towns, and by old St. Andrews to Wick, and so to the Orkneys and Shetlands. But it was late in the season for this trip, so they went to Paris and the Mediterranean. I think they were right."

"Paris, of course. All the fools go there!"

"Well, Mrs. Campbell, Scotland is a bleak place for a honeymoon."

"Mr. St. Claire, if it does for a man's home, it may do to honeymoon in.

That is my opinion."

"I don't agree with you, Mrs. Campbell. A honeymoon is a sort of transcendental existence, and a man naturally wants to spend it as nearly in Paradise as possible. There's no place like the Mediterranean for sunshine, and it is poetical and picturesque, and just the place for lovers."

Failing, with all his willing good nature, to rouse any apparent interest in a subject he considered highly interesting, he felt a little offended, and rose to depart. But ere he reached the parlor door he turned and said: "I had nearly forgotten one very remarkable thing about the bride."

"Let us hear it, by all means," said Mrs. Campbell.

"I stayed a few days after the marriage, in order to visit Windermere and Keswick Lake with Mr. Newton--by-the-by, wonderfully beautiful spots, nothing like them in Scotland--and one day while waiting in his study, I picked up a book. Imagine my astonishment, when I saw it had been written by the bride."

At this information Mrs. Campbell threw up her hands with a laugh that terminated in something like a shriek. Isabel laid her hand on her mother's arm, and asked: "Are you ill, mother?"

"No," she answered promptly. "I am only like Mr. St. Claire, astonished.

I need not have been. Every girl scribbles a little now. Poetry, of course."

"You mean Mrs. Campbell's book?"

"Yes."

"On the contrary, it was a most learned and interesting study of ancient and sacred geography."

"A schoolbook!" and the words were scoffed out with utter contempt.

"Then a most fascinating one. It gave the Latin and Saxon names of our own old cities, and all the historical and biographical incidents connected with them. It treated the names in the Bible and ancient history in the same way. The preacher was very modest about it, but said it was now in all the best schools, and that his daughter had quite a good income from the royalty on its sale. And he added: 'Since you have discovered her secret, I may tell you that she has written two novels, and a volume of----'"

"Plays, I dare say."

"No, ma'am, of Social Essays."

"Really, Mr. St. Claire, we can stand no more revelations concerning the bride's perfections! Robert Campbell is only a master of iron workers and coal miners, and I fear he will feel painfully his inferiority to such a marvellously beautiful and intellectual woman. As for myself, and my poor girls, I can only say--grant us patience!"

St. Claire bowed, and made a hurried exit. "Ill-natured and envious creatures as ever I met," he mused. "I'm sorry for Mrs. Robert! She will have troubles great and small with those women under her roof, and I wonder if Robert will have the gumption to stand by her. He was always extraordinarily afraid of his mother. I should be afraid of her myself.

I am thankful my mother isn't the least like her! My mother is made of love and sweet-temper, and she is more of a lady in her winsey skirt and linen short gown than Mrs. Traquair Campbell is in all her silk and lace and jewelry. Thank G.o.d for His mercies! The Book says a good wife is from the Lord. I know, by personal experience, that a good mother is even more so. I'll just write mother a letter this very night, and tell her all about the wedding. She will enjoy every word of it, and at the end say: 'G.o.d bless the young things! With His blessing they'll do weel enough, whatever comes.'"

There was no blessing in Mrs. Campbell's heart. She looked at her girls in silence until she heard the closing of the front door, then she asked: "What do you say to Mr. St. Claire's story?" and Isabel answered: "I say what you said, mother--grant us patience!"

"Tut, Isabel! Patience? Nonsense! I think little of that grace. Theodora may be a beauty, a school-teacher, and an auth.o.r.ess, but we three women can match her."

"Whatever made Robert marry her?"

"That is past speculating about! But she is the man's choice--such as it is. Doubtless he thinks her without a fault, but, as I told you before, the bit-by-bitness can soon change that opinion--a little mustard seed of suspicion or difference of any kind, can grow to a great tree. I'm telling you! Do not forget what I say. I am just distracted as yet with the situation. This world is a hard place."

"I think so too, mother," said Christina, "and it is small comfort to be told the next is probably worse."

"I have had lots of trouble in my life, girls, but the worst of all comes with what your father called 'the lad and la.s.s business.' It was that drove your brother David beyond seas, and I have not heard a word from him since he went away one day in a pa.s.sion. But this or that, mind you, I have always come out of every tribulation victorious--and there is now three of us--we shall be hard enough to beat."

"Theodora has a good many points in her favor," said Christina.

"Count them up, then; count them up! She is a beauty, a genius, an Englishwoman, a Methodist, a teacher of women, a writer of books, and no doubt she will try to set up the golden image of her manifold perfections in Traquair House--but which of us three will bow down before it? Tell me! Tell me that, Christina!"

"Not I, mother."

"Nor I," added Isabel.

"Nor I, you may take an oath on that," said Mrs. Campbell. "And what says the Good Book, 'a threefold cord is not easily broken?' Now you may give me Dr. Chalmer's last sermons, and I'll take a few words from him to settle my mind and put me to sleep; for I am fairly distracted with the prospect of such a monumental woman among us. But I'll say nothing about her, one way or the other, and then I cannot be blamed. I would advise you both to be equally prudent."

But Isabel and Christina were not of their mother's mind. Such a delightful bit of gossip had never before come into their lives, and they went to Isabel's room to talk it all over again, for Isabel being the eldest had the largest and the best furnished room. Isabel made a social event of it, by placing a little table between them, set with the special dainties she kept for her private refreshment. And they felt it to be a friendly and cheerful thing, to have this special woman to season the rich cates and fruit provided. So it had struck twelve before Christina rose and remarked:

"You told me, Isabel, there were going to be changes, and you are right.

The next one will be the home-coming, and I dare say Robert will descend on us in the most unexpected time and way."

"You are much mistaken, Christina. I am sure Robert will be telegraphing Jepson from every station on the road. The most trivial things will be directed by him. Let us go to bed now; I am sleepy."