harmonize with the wishes of those matrimonially inclined is as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

"We always meant to be married, Aunt Nellie," answered Vivian after a short pause. "No other girl would suit me, and she is satisfied with me. Arnt you, Mandy?"

"Yes," said Amanda without hesitation.

"Nellie," cried Mrs. Thomas, unable to contain herself any longer, "don't you make 'em feel you don't believe they'll be happy together. They ain't children now, and because they've always been sparrin' is all the more reason they'll settle down tame enough."

"I should just hate a man I couldn't have a good quarrel with, once in a while," the girl made a pretense of whispering to her mother, and giving Vivian a look which meant that he was to understand they were to have things as they wanted them.

"I've got no call to say any more," said Mrs. Powell, to whom this slight opposition had been an extraordinary effort. She felt that conscience could demand no more of her. So she kissed Amanda and then kissed Vivian, and Jane Thomas kissed them both and cried over them, as sentimental women cry when they get their heart's desire, and they all stood on the porch together for a few minutes, talking eagerly, perhaps to cover a little feeling that had been stirred up by the discussion; a foreboding that could not quite be laid to rest, whether, after all, this marriage was a wise one, a prudent one, and one from which good was to come.

Did Amanda feel this doubt? Perhaps the odd little shiver that came over her and that she shook off so lightly was a premonition she would have done well to heed, instead of turning, as she did, to lay her beautiful head on her lover's shoulder in a manner that was rather too deliberate to be altogether fond.

Did Vivian experience any fear of the future in this instant of promised fulfilment of his hopes? Not he. The time was as yet far distant when that buoyant glance which seemed to challenge fate was to be turned downward in melancholy resignation, and the impetuous outleaping of suggestion and comment that was natural to his enthusiastic temperament become hesitating appeal to one he feared to displease.

And the two mothers, watching this adored son and daughter and rejoicing in their joy, sympathizing and admiring with that admiration which is most perfectly free from envy, did their knowledge of human nature and their past experience not suggest that which must make them tremble in regarding these two heedless young creatures, both children of one haughty race, bent upon gratifying that impulse of mutual attraction which was more than likely to have its source in animal obstinacy than in reasonable, human affection?

But how limited is the outlook of elderly women in these little southern villages, where the history of a few lives constitutes their entire equipment in sociology, and to whom the idea of essential differences between sets of conditions superficially alike, can never present itself strongly. Mrs. Powell's motherly instinct had had its spasm of alarm, but had been quieted by the soothing reflection that marriage tames high spirits, and that the Rubicon of matrimony once passed, adjustment to circumstances must follow. Nothing else was conceivable. As for Jane Thomas, any picture of a future into which trouble might come to her son even from the "curse of a granted prayer" was beyond her imagination. All she had asked in life since Vivian was born was that he might have whatever was necessary to make him happy, and that spirited youth had succeeded in convincing her that happiness lay in having what he wanted. He wanted Amanda, and now he had got her. Mrs. Thomas rejoiced as far as her melancholy temperament permitted, and trusted the future to Providence. And in a month Amanda Powell had become "young Mrs. Thomas." A month is a short engagement in Virginia, but Vivian was impatient to open up his closed homestead, and start the farm going according to some new theories of farming, which chiefly took shape in patent fertilizer and an improved kind of harrow; also, the introduction of white labor to supersede the "lazy darkies."

And to Amanda marriage meant the pretty pearl ring her lover had placed upon her finger, the rustling white silk gown her mother had made for her in Ryburg, and—the wedding journey. Our wildest dreams are only re-combinations of what we have experienced or read of, and how could this girl of eighteen, for all her rich and varied nature, dream of the coming of responsibilities that would shake her frail fancies of married life like an earthquake, or of mental development that would awaken critical faculties to the extent of making her rebel against what she now accepted as matters of course; nothing better having presented itself to her mind?

She was satisfied that the wedding was conventionally correct, according to Fauquier County standards; that the day was bright; that she looked her best, and that Vivian was devoted without being uncomfortably demonstrative. For without at all understanding why it was so, the young girl, so full of ardor in all her attachments, had a virginal coldness toward her young lover that made her shrink with distaste from caresses and put aside any suggestion of an intimacy other than had always existed between them, and of which she foresaw merely an extension, not a transformation into anything more exacting.

Reared by an old-fashioned southern mother, watched and shielded as maidens once were when maternal ideas of duty included an anxious supervision over a daughter's reading, amusements, and associations, Amanda was in all essentials still a child, with only her natural dignity and womanly instinct to protect her amid the various perplexities and temptations the future might hold for her.

New York burst upon her eager senses as the first deafening crash of a full orchestra might salute the ears of a music-mad boy who had never heard anything more stimulating than the wheezy strains of a second-rate melodeon. Stunned but delighted, she gazed from the carriage windows upon the crowds, the stores, and the elevated railway, and thought that now she was seeing the world.

Vivian went to the Windsor, and as the youthful pair descended to the dining-room about seven o'clock and told a servant at the door that they wanted "supper," the lofty head waiter in condescending admiration, swooped down and led them to the extreme rear of the room, where, ranged in close proximity, were four other bridal couples as newly made as themselves.

But Amanda had come down in a white lawn gown profusely trimmed with pink satin ribbon, and heavy gold bracelets on her arms, bare to the elbow. The other brides wore walking suits and bonnets, with the exception of one, whose gown was of rich brocade, and whose supercilious face was set off by the most unapproachable coiffure Amanda had ever seen.

She had quick perceptions, and was keenly alive to any defect in her own appearance, and in ten minutes she suffered all the agony that would be felt by a finished woman of the world who had inadvertently worn full dress to a reception demanding bonnets. Yet, to the first test her metal rang true. With heightened color she went through the form of dining, and Vivian, whose sensibilities were as keen as hers and whose self-love was greater, took note of certain differences between his young wife and the other women, and felt himself aggrieved by her lack of taste. It was too soon, and he was too tender toward her for him to betray intentionally this slight