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"Good gracious! he is in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily from the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!" We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the bridal-party should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and walked into the room without prelude.

The fly had been hired at the nearest town, regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking bridal-party.

As to her colour, I enriched it," he explained grimly, "by mentioning my feeling about Ridge. If I thought, after all the attentions that girl has had, that she'd take Ridge Jordan with all his money! Dot's no girl to care such a lot about money. It's this crazy bridal-party business that's upset her, I'll go you! The thing's contagious. Lord Harry!

And on the morrow they set out, with a train of earl-folk and lovely ladies, to meet their son and his bride. For one whole day they journeyed to the old fortress of Santen, where in former days the king's dwelling had been. There they met the happy bridal-party, and fond and loving were the hearty greetings they bestowed upon Kriemhild and the radiant Siegfried.

The bridal-party went out chattering and laughing, the prospective bride with ugly red spots of agitation on her high cheek-bones, the pretty girl holding up her laced petticoats with the air of a princess. The stout German woman got off in front of her husband's saloon. The Syrians stopped in front of a store.

The clumsy wheels of several old-fashioned coaches were heard, and the gentlemen and ladies composing the bridal-party came through the church door with the sudden and gladsome effect of a burst of sunshine. The whole group, except the principal figure, was made up of youth and gayety.

The fly had been hired at the nearest town, regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking bridal-party.

Once, it is said, she affrighted a bridal-party with her pale presence, appearing suddenly in the illuminated hall just as the priest was uniting a false maid to a wealthy man before her lover had been dead a year. Evil was the omen to that marriage.

"Good gracious! he is in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily from the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!" We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the bridal-party should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and walked into the room without prelude.

The man himself was old, and moved slowly and painfully. A white beard of unusual length blew over his right shoulder. Everything seemed aged and worn and weary, and full of knowledge, to its undoing. To Carroll, in this mood, even the bridal-party, even the children, seemed as old as age itself, puppets evolved from the ashes of ages, working out a creation-old plan of things.