Way Down East | Page 9

more redolent of liquor than one might have expected in the
gardener of a parsonage.
The room in which the ceremony was to take place was the ordinary
cottage parlor, with crochet work on the chairs, and a profusion of
vases and bric-a-brac on the tables. The Rev. John Langdon requested

Anna and Sanderson to stand by a little marble table from which the
housekeeper brushed a profusion of knick-knacks. There was no Bible.
Anna was the first to notice the omission. This seemed to deprive the
young clergyman of his dignity. He looked confused, blushed, and
turning to the housekeeper told her to fetch the Bible. This seemed to
appeal to the housekeeper's sense of humor. She burst out laughing and
said something about looking for a needle in a haystack. Sanderson
turned on her furiously, and she left the room, looking sour, and
muttering indignantly. She returned, after what seemed an interminable
space of time, and the ceremony proceeded.
Anna did not recognize her own voice as she answered the responses.
Sanderson's was clear and ringing; his tones never faltered. When the
time came to put the ring on her finger, Anna's hand trembled so
violently that the ring fell to the floor and rolled away. Sanderson's face
turned pale. It seemed to him like a providential dispensation. For some
minutes, the assembled company joined in the hunt for the ring. It was
found at length by the yellow-haired housekeeper, who returned it with
her most wolfish grin.
"Trust Bertha Harris to find things!" said the clergyman.
The ceremony proceeded without further incident. The final words
were pronounced and Anna sank into a chair, relieved that it was over,
whether it was for better or for worse.
Sanderson hurried her into the carriage before the clergyman and the
witnesses could offer their congratulations. He pulled her away from
the yellow-haired housekeeper, who would have smothered her in an
embrace, and they departed without the customary handshake from the
officiating clergyman.
"You were not very cordial, dear," she said, as they rolled along
through the early winter landscape.
"Confound them all. I hated to see them near you"--and then, in answer
to her questioning gaze--"because I love you so much, darling. I hate to
see anyone touch you."

The trees were bare; the fields stretched away brown and flat, like the
folds of a shroud, and the sun was veiled by lowering clouds of gray. It
was not a cheerful day for a wedding.
"Lennox, did you remember that this is Friday? And I have on a black
dress."
"And now that Mrs. Lennox has settled the question of to wed or not to
wed, by wedding--behold, she is worrying herself about her frock and
the color of it, and the day of the week and everything else. Was there
ever such a dear little goose?" He pinched her cheek, and she--she
smiled up at him, her fears allayed.
"And why don't you ask where we are going, least curious of women?"
"I forgot; indeed I did."
"We are going to the White Rose Inn. Ideal name for a place in which
to spend one's honeymoon, isn't it?"
"Any place would be ideal with you Lennie," and she slipped her little
hand into his ruggeder palm.
At last the White Rose Inn was sighted; it was one of those modern
hostelries, built on an old English model. The windows were muslined,
the rooms were wainscoted in oak, the furniture was heavy and
cumbersome. Anna was delighted with everything she saw. Sanderson
had had their sitting-room filled with crimson roses, they were
everywhere; banked on the mantelpiece, on the tables and window-sills.
Their perfume was to Anna like the loving embrace of an old friend.
Jacqueminots had been so closely associated with her acquaintance
with Sanderson, in after years she could never endure their perfume and
their scarlet petals unnerved her, as the sight of blood does some
women.
A trim English maid came to assist "Mrs. Lennox," to unpack her
things. Lunch was waiting in the sitting-room. Sanderson gave minute
orders about the icing of his own particular brand of champagne, which

he had had sent from Boston.
Anna had recovered her good spirits. It seemed "such a jolly lark," as
her husband said.
"Sweetheart, your happiness," he said, and raised his glass to hers. Her
eyes sparkled like the champagne. The honeymoon at the White Rose
Tavern had begun very merrily.

CHAPTER V.
A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
"The moon--the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft
been told, Now shady--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar
things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And
takes the most eccentric range Is the moon--so called--of
honey."--Hood.
"My dear, will