Probably he felt that an
inscrutable smile was his safest means of navigating waters like these.
We went down to the wedding. The Preacher stood up very straight while
he was being married, and though his boyish cheek paled and reddened
again as the ceremony proceeded, his responses were clear-cut. Rhodora
made a bonny bride. The absurd vision I had had of her, ever since I
had heard she was to be married, of her taking the officiating
clergyman's book out of his hand and steering the service for herself,
melted away before the vision of her serious young beauty as she made
her vows, and turned from the clergyman's felicitations, at the
conclusion of the service, to take Grandmother into a tender embrace.
"I owe it all to you," she said to Grandmother by and by, in my hearing,
as we three happened to be for a little alone together. She turned to
me. "I was a barbarian when she took me," she said. "A barbarian of
barbarians. If it hadn't been for Grandmother I should be one yet, and
he"--her glance went off for an instant toward her young husband--"would
never have dreamed of looking at me.
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