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Then came the bride, her hand resting lightly upon the arm of the friend who had led her along the greater part of her life's pathway, for Miss Preston had been Miss Howard's "guide, philosopher and friend" almost as long as she could remember. Very stately did she look, as she walked up that aisle to give away at the altar something which the years had rendered very precious to her, for sometimes "old maids' children" are more dear to them than are the children who claim the love of parents.
Miss Preston was very proud of her honors.
But no words can describe the girl who walked at her side, her beautiful face made transcendently so by the tenderest, holiest thought that can fill a woman's heart: that she is about to become the wife of the man she loves. She seemed to forget the church and all who were gathered there to witness her happiness, and the soft, dark eyes looked straight before her to the altar, where her husband to be awaited her, as though that altar was to her as the entrance to the holy of holies; as, indeed, it was.
How brief is a marriage ceremony! A few words are spoken and two lives are changed forever, never again to be the same as they were less than ten minutes before, but filled with new duties, new obligations, and the responsibilities we must all a.s.sume when we utter the words: "I will." G.o.d meant that it should be so, and it is one of this world's many blessings.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BRIDE, HER HAND RESTING LIGHTLY ON THE ARM OF HER FRIEND."]
The reception Miss Preston gave for her "adopted daughter," as she called Miss Howard, now Mrs. Chichester, was long talked over by the school, and quoted by the girls as "our reception" for months.
Mr. and Mrs. Chichester sailed for Europe on the same steamer which carried Miss Preston and her girls, and a happier, merrier party it would have been hard to find. Toinette and Mr. Reeve went to bid them farewell and a pleasant voyage, and the last faces those upon the great s.h.i.+p saw as they swung out into the stream were Toinette's and her father's.
And now we, too, must leave them--leave them to the happy summer vacation, when they learned how dear they were to each other, and what a dear old world this is, after all, when two people manage to look at it through little Dan Cupid's spectacles.
