dressed when my mother came to see why I was late; for I had not been late
forever so long before.

She comforted me as nobody but a mother can comfort. Oh, I do hope I shall
be to my children what my mother has been to me! It would be such a blessed
thing to be a well of water whence they may be sure of drawing comfort. And
all she said to me has come true.

Of course, my father gave me away, and Mr. Weir married us.

It had been before agreed that we should have no wedding journey. We all
liked the old-fashioned plan of the bride going straight from her father's
house to her husband's. The other way seemed a poor invention, just for the
sake of something different. So after the wedding, we spent the time as we
should have done any other day, wandering about in groups, or sitting and
reading, only that we were all more smartly dressed; until it was time for
an early dinner, after which we drove to the station, accompanied only
by my father and mother. After they left us, or rather we left them, my
husband did not speak to me for nearly an hour: I knew why, and was very
grateful. He would not show his new face in the midst of my old loves and
their sorrows, but would give me time to re-arrange the grouping so as
myself to bring him in when all was ready for him. I know that was what he
was thinking, or feeling rather; and I understood him perfectly. At last,
when I had got things a little tidier inside me, and had got my eyes to
stop, I held out my hand to him, and then--knew that I was his wife.

This is all I have got to tell, though I have plenty more to keep, till we
get to London. There, instead of my father's nice carriage, we got into a
jolting, lumbering, horrid cab, with my five boxes and Percivale's little
portmanteau on the top of it, and drove away to Camden Town. It _was_