myrtle upon their heads, entered and stood before them, singing,—
"Now we come to greet you."
The whole was a surprise, arranged by Mrs. Claremont. Her own married life had been so singularly harmonious and happy, she could scarcely harbor a doubt that according to present indications her daughter's would be equally so. So insignificant in the presence of an overwhelming joy seems the remembrance of all our griefs, that the future only, with its blank pages of virgin whiteness opens before us, about which it seems almost a sacrilege to breathe the thought of coming sorrow. The sound of the infant voices died away, and soon after the vibrations of the piano, when an impressive silence followed as the most fitting response for feelings too deep for expression. It was broken by the officiating minister, now slightly silver-haired, who, when a young man, had joined the hands of Alfred Claremont and Marianne Beaufort.
"I cannot forbear," he said, "giving utterance to my heartfelt joy, arising from emotions excited in an hour like this. I have often wished that music had been ordained a part of the marriage ritual. Nothing could be more appropriate to such an occasion,—nothing could shed a more hallowed influence over the trials and triumphs that lie hidden in the dim future.
"During my experience of the last quarter of a century I have seen much, very much to pain me. I have been called to administer consolation in desolate homes whence the angel of love and charity
