carriages and people and horses, and then even the blurs on the distance
were gone, and the place was still and the wedding was over. The long
afternoon was before them, with its restless emptiness, as if the bride
and groom had taken all the reason for life with them.

There were bridesmaids and ushers staying at the Fieldings'. The
graceful girl who poured out the Bishop's tea on the piazza, some hours
later, and brought it to him with her own hands, stared a little at his
face for a moment.

"You look tired, Bishop. Is it hard work marrying people? But you must
be used to it after all these years," and her blue eyes fell gently on
his gray hair. "So many love-stories you have finished--so many, many!"
she went on, and then quite softly, "and yet never to have a love-story
of your own!"

At this instant Eleanor, lolling on the arm of his chair, slipped over
on his knee and burrowed against his coat a big pink bow that tied her
hair. The Bishop's arm tightened around the warm, alive lump of white
muslin, and he lifted his face, where lines showed plainly to-day, with
a smile like sunshine.

"You are wrong, my daughter. They never finish--they only begin here.
And my love-story"--he hesitated and his big fingers spread over the
child's head, "It is all written in Eleanor's eyes."

"I hope when mine comes I shall have the luck to hear anything half as
pretty as that. I envy Eleanor," said the graceful bridesmaid as she
took the tea-cup again, but the Bishop did not hear her.