a half more swiftly than on that day when his rider was charged
with so important news.
  " Gertie, Gertie, I say, where are you Look here!" he
exclaimed, as he bolted into the room where she was sitting.
" Guess how the rector proposes to keep Lent ! What cross is
he going to bear ! "
  Gertie could only look at him in surprise, while he went on:
  " He has bought the Ridge House, and is going to take a
wife, just before Ash-Wednesday ! Think of Alice Creighton
running a sewing society and having a church sociable! "
  It was as Godfrey said, Alice was to be Rev. Mrs. Marks,
and live at the Ridge House, which her money bought, and the
fitting up of which she came to superintend a few days after the
story was out. She had written to me askin g permission to stop
with us while she remained in Hampstead, and I was expecting
the little lady, when both Gertie and Godfrey interfered, and
begged so hard for her to stop with them that she yielded to
their entreaties and went to Schuyler Hill, where Godfrey nearly
teased her life out of her, and was far more attentive to her than
he had been during the short period of his engagement. Even
Mr. Marks himself was scarcely more interested than Godfrey
in the house, which Alice furnished in accordance with her own
extravagant notions.
  " It was not as if she was poor and dependent upon her hus-
band's salary," she said, and so she made a little palace of a
home for her future lord, who assented to whatever she sug-
gested, and seemed so excited and absent-minded after she was
gone, that we were glad when toward the last of February a
young student from New York came up to officiate at St. Luke's
while the rector took a short vacation.
  He was absent nearly two weeks,-and when he came back
to us Alice was with him, and astonished us all with her wonder-
ful outfit, her tall ruffs which reached to her ears, dresses which
trailed a yard, sleeveless jackets of every device and color, and
her hair, gotten up in a most remarkable manner. She said
that she married Afr. Marks, and not his teelpe consequently
nothing more must be expected of her as Mrs. 4arks Lharn she



AND LAST.



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