and they saw the two girls and their mother
get into the b'rouche and drive away
triumphant. The Doctor, wistfully and
impatiently huddling them in, hurried back to
the bridegroom's house, at whose door was
waiting a small brougham, lent by one of
the officers.

       CHAPTER XV. THE WEDDING.

THE church was crammed; the people
standing on forms at the lower end, the
galleries crowded, and in the foremost pews
a number of the guests standing in lines.
There was Lord Shipton in his new thread
gloves and his swallow-tail coat, Colonel
Bouchier, and many of his officers, in
uniform, and Katey, all white and veiled,
attended by her fair bridesmaids, kneeling.
Twingles, the organist, was playing the
Wedding March of the immortal Mendelssohn
Bartholdy, while from the vestry
door the face of the Rev. W. Webber
would peer out anxiously to see if the rest
of the party were coming. It was very
odd. Many began to whisper and smile;
Mrs. Leader was so clever; who knew but at
this three-quarters past the eleventh hour!
—the flutter and expectation increased.
Polly's head, with flushed cheeks, was
turned round to the door openly. But
hark now to the sound of wheels—hark
also to quick steps and shuffling upon the
pavement.

Every head was turned as the Doctor
hurried up, the bridegroom leaning heavily
on his arm. But a bridegroom so ghastly,
with such wild eyes, such sunken cheeks,
such decrepit form, that it was not surprising
that every one was amazed, and leaped
to the conclusion that he was wretched and
miserable, loathed the whole business, and
but for the watchful custody of the Doctor,
would have escaped. Out came Billy Webber
promptly, and began. Katey, her eyes
demurely on the ground, never saw the
strange change in her lover, who was,
indeed, in a sort of stupid trance all through,
with staring eyes, his head dropping on his
breast, the Doctor jogging him now and
again. It was a strange ceremonial, as
Mr. Webber gradually forged link after
link of the firm chain that was to bind
them. At last he had finished his task,
riveted the last link, and our beautiful
Katey was now MRS. CECIL LEADER of
Leadersfort.

All the time "the best man"—a brother
officer—had kept close to the chief actor,
on the Doctor's advice, giving him a
substantial as well as moral support. All
through he remained the same, scarcely
articulating the answers; and then, when
they adjourned into the vestry to sign the
books, the Doctor clutched his arm
painfully, and congratulating him noisily,
stimulated him by a sharp whisper. People
began to wonder and look strangely, but
in a moment the Doctor had him in a little
off-room, where, from a small bottle in his
pocket, he administered something.
Indeed, as the Doctor said later, it was
wonderful that his own hair and whiskers did
not turn grey from all that was on them.
However, the happy pair were got into the
b'rouche, the greys flew over the ground,
and that sort of sauve qui peut, from the
church to the house, which at a wedding
always sets in, now took place. What the
hapless Katey thought of her new
companion during that passage no one had
time to ask her. Here was the crowd
round the house, for whom such a
wedding was a rare curiosity. They were now
all hurrying back, the strange vehicle of
Lord Shipton leading. What a day for
that Findlater house! And here was
actually the band of the regiment drawn
up in a ring in the road, ready to play in a
complimentary fashion during the banquet.
The Doctor had grown to be immensely
popular with the men, who looked on him
almost as one of their own officers.

It was a bright sunny day. Long after
the actors in it looked back, as we may
suppose most actors of the kind do, through
a sort of dreamy film that pervaded it—
every one being in a manner glorified out
of their usual daily prosiness. To Katey
it seemed a vision; she hardly knew what
was going on about her; she was handled,
and dressed, and embraced by her female
friends quite passively. Strange to say,
she took no thought of her husband; she
seemed almost scared at that image, and,
perhaps, it was then that the first notion
of the serious gravity of the step she had
taken came back upon her.

The dining-room was crowded, and
glittered with uniforms. Champagne was
flying as if all the boys' "pop-guns" in
England were at work. There was a
general flushing of faces and chatter of
tongues. Now Lord Shipton is on his feet
with a toast, which he trusts he will be
permitted to propose. His lordship becomes
flowery, and almost amorous in his praise
of Katey and her sister, and owns he had
long since irretrievably lost his heart to one
of these lovely girls. He was not in the
least ashamed to own it; he gloried in it,