He was a solemn-looking old person, who had been a missionary,
and "had laid away three dear wives in foreign lands," as he
confided to me afterward over a plate of ice-cream. He seemed
to me to be "taking notice," as they say of babies, and it is
barely possible that he mistook me for a single woman, for his
attentions were rather pronounced till I introduced my husband
prominently into conversation; after that he seemed more
attracted by Ellen Gray.
Mary cried straight through the ceremony. In fact, I imagine she
cried straight through the engagement, for her eyes looked wept
out and had scarlet rims, and she was as white as her veil. In
fact, whiter, for that was made of beautiful _point de Venise_,
and was just a trifle yellowish. Everybody cried. Her mother and
sister sobbed aloud, so did several maiden aunts and a
grandmother or two and a few cousins. The church resounded with
guggles and gasps, like a great deal of bath-water running out
of an ill-constructed tub. Mr. Silver also wept, as a business
man may, in a series of sniffs interspersed with silk
handkerchief; you know the kind. Altogether it was a most
cheerless affair. I seemed to be the only person present who was
not in tears; but I really didn't see anything to cry about, so
far as I was concerned, though I felt very hard-hearted.
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