school duties; and he listened with a kind of far-away sense to the preliminary services. Then, just before the sermon, the bride, attended by Sarah Benson and a little crowd of her acquaintances, entered. She had on a white muslin gown, and a little bonnet covered with orange-blossoms, and a white tulle veil, and Ben had never been before, and never would be again, at once so proud and so ashamed as when he joined her at the communion rails.
Some days before the marriage Nelly had shown him her white dress, and he had thought it very simple and suitable, but the tulle veil and the orange-blossoms took him quite by surprise. He told himself that as soon as he got Nelly home he would say a few words to her about them, but somehow he could not say them, and, having let this opportunity pass for asserting his own views and opinions, he never since has had another. In fact, very shortly after his marriage he began to see the superiority of Nelly's opinions, until he eventually came to consider her the one perfect piece of feminine workmanship that the Creator had achieved.
Sarah had taken the greatest pleasure in Ben and Nelly's wedding, and it was to her deft
