At nine in the morning Harry presented himself at the house, no longer his own, for the signing of certain papers. The place was closed for a holiday, but the girls were already assembling in the show-room, getting their dresses laid out, trying on their gloves, and chattering like birds up in the branches on a fine, spring morning. He found Angela sitting with an elderly gentleman—none other than the senior partner of the firm of her solicitors. He had a quantity of documents on the table before him, and as Harry opened the door he heard these remarkable words:

"So the young man does not know—even at the eleventh hour?"

What it was he would learn, Harry cared not to inquire. He had been told that there was a secret of some sort which he would learn in the course of the day.

"These papers, Harry," said his bride, "are certain documents which you have to sign, connected with that little fortune of which I told you."

"I hope," said Harry, "that the fortune, whatever it is, has all been settled upon yourself absolutely."

"You will find, young gentleman," said the solicitor, gravely, "that ample justice—generous justice—has been done you. Very well, I will say no more."

"Do you want me to sign without reading, Angela?"

"If you will so far trust me."

He took the pen and signed where he was told to sign, without reading one word. If he had been ordered to sign away his life and liberty, he would have done so blindly and cheerfully at Angela's bidding. The deed was signed, and the act of signature was witnessed.

So that was done. There now remained only the ceremony. While the solicitor, who evidently disliked the whole proceeding, as irregular and dangerous, was putting up the papers, Angela took her lover's hands in hers, and looked into his face with her frank and searching look.

"You do not repent, my poor Harry?"

"Repent?"

"You might have done so much better: you might have married a lady——"

The solicitor, overhearing these words, sat down and rubbed his nose with an unprofessional smile.

"Shall I not marry a lady?"

"You might have found a rich bride: you might have led a lazy life, with nothing to do, instead of which—O Harry, there is still time! We are not due at the church for half an hour yet. Think. Do you deliberately choose a life of work and ambition—with—perhaps—poverty?"

At this point the solicitor rose from his chair and walked softly to the window, where he remained for five minutes looking out upon Stepney Green with his back to the lovers. If Harry had been watching him, he would have remarked a curious tremulous movement of the shoulders.

"There is one thing more, Harry, that I have to ask you."

"Of course, you have only to ask me, whatever it is. Could I refuse you anything, who will give me so much?"

Their fingers were interlaced, their eyes were looking into each other. No; he could refuse her nothing.

"I give you much? O Harry! what is a woman's gift of herself?"

Harry restrained himself. The solicitor might be sympathetic; but, on the whole, it was best to act as if he were not. Law has little to do with love; Cupid has never yet been represented with the long gown.

"It is a strange request, Harry. It is connected with my—my little foolish secret. You will let me go away directly the service is over, and you will consent not to see me again until the evening, when I shall return. You, with all the girls, will meet me in the porch of the Palace at seven o'clock exactly. And, as Miss Messenger will come too, you will make your—perhaps your last appearance—my poor boy—in the character of a modern English gentleman in evening-dress. Tell your best man that he is to give his arm to Nelly; the other girls will follow two and two. Oh, Harry, the first sound of the organ in your Palace will be your own wedding march: the first festival in your Palace will be in your own honor. Is not that what it should be?"

"In your honor, dear, not mine. And Miss Messenger? Are we to give no honor to her who built the Palace?"

"Oh, yes—yes—yes!" She put the question by with a careless gesture. "But any one who happened to have the money could do such a simple thing. The honor is yours because you invented it."

"From your hands, Angela, I will take all the honor that you please to give. So am I doubly honored."

There were no wedding bells at all: the organ was mute; the parish church of Stepney was empty; the spectators of the marriage were Mrs. Bormalack and Captain Sorensen, besides the girls and the bridegroom, and Dick, his best man. The captain in the Salvation Army might have been present as well; he had been asked, but he was lying on the sick-bed from which he was never to rise again. Lord and Lady Davenant were there: the former sleek, well contented, well dressed in broadcloth of the best; the latter agitated, restless, humiliated, because she had lost the thing she came across the Atlantic to claim, and was going home, after the splendor of the last three months, to the monotonous level of Canaan City. Who could love Canaan City after the West End of London! What woman would look forward with pleasure to the dull and uneventful days, the local politics, the chapel squabbles, the little gatherings for tea and supper, after the enjoyment of a carriage and pair and unlimited theatres, operas, and concerts, and footmen, and such dinners as the average American, or the average Englishman either, seldom arrives at seeing, even in visions? Sweet content was gone; and though Angela meant well, and it was kind of her to afford the ambitious lady a glimpse of that great world into which she desired to enter, the sight—even this Pisgah glimpse—of a social paradise to which she could never belong destroyed her peace of mind, and she will for the rest of her life lie on a rock deploring. Not so her husband: his future is assured; he can eat and drink plentifully; he can sleep all the morning undisturbed; he is relieved of the anxieties connected with his Case; and, though the respect due to rank is not recognized in the States, he has to bear none of its responsibilities, and has altogether abandoned the grand manner. At the same time, as one who very nearly became a British peer, his position in Canaan City is enormously raised.

They, then, were in the church. They drove thither, not in Miss Messenger's carriage, but with Lord Jocelyn.

They arrived a quarter of an hour before the ceremony. When the curate who was to perform the ceremony arrived, Lord Jocelyn sought him in the vestry and showed him a special license by which it was pronounced lawful, and even laudable, for Harry Goslett, bachelor, to take unto wife Angela Marsden Messenger, spinster.

And at sight of that name did the curate's knees begin to tremble, and his hands to shake.

"Angela Marsden Messenger? is it then," he asked, "the great heiress?"

"It is none other," said Lord Jocelyn. "And she marries my ward—here is my card—by special license."

"But—but—is it a clandestine marriage?"

"Not at all. There are reasons why Miss Messenger desires to be married in Stepney. With them we have nothing to do. She has, of late, associated herself with many works of benevolence, but anonymously. In fact, my dear sir"—here Lord Jocelyn looked profoundly knowing—"my ward, the bridegroom, has always known her under another name, and even now does not know whom he is marrying. When we sign the books we must, just to keep the secret a little longer, manage that he shall write his own name without seeing the names of the bride."

This seemed very irregular in the eyes of the curate, and at first he was for referring the matter to the rector, but finally gave in, on the understanding that he was to be no party to any concealment.

And presently the wedding party walked slowly up the aisle, and Harry, to his great astonishment, saw his bride on Lord Jocelyn's arm. There were cousins of the Messengers in plenty who should have done this duty, but Angela would invite none of them. She came alone to Stepney; she lived and worked in the place alone; she wanted no consultation or discussion with the cousins; she would tell them when all was done; and she knew very well that so great an heiress as herself could do nothing but what is right, when one has time to recover from the shock, and to settle down and think things over.

No doubt, though we have nothing to do with the outside world in this story, there was a tremendous rustling of skirts, shaking of heads, tossing of curls, wagging of tongues, and uplifting of hands, the next morning when Angela's cards were received, and the news was in all the papers. And there was such a run upon interjections that the vocabulary broke down, and people were fain to cry to one another in foreign tongues.

For thus the announcement ran:

"On Thursday, March 20, at the parish church, Stepney, Harry, son of the late Samuel Goslett, Sergeant in the 120th Regiment of the Line, to Angela Marsden, daughter of the late John Marsden Messenger, and granddaughter of the late John Messenger, of Portman Square and Whitechapel."

This was a pretty blow among the cousins. The greatest heiress in England, who they had hoped would marry a duke, or a marquis, or an earl at least, had positively and actually married the son of a common soldier—well, a non-commissioned officer—the same thing. What did it mean? What could it mean?

Others, who knew Harry and his story, who had sympathy with him on account of his many qualities—who owned that the obscurity of his birth was but an accident, shared with him by many of the most worthy, excellent, brilliant, useful, well-bred, delightful men of the world—rejoiced over the strange irony of fate which had first lifted this soldier's son out of the gutter, and then, with apparent malignity, dropped him back again, only, however, to raise him once more far higher than before. For, indeed, the young man was now rich—with his vats and his mashtubs, his millions of casks, his Old and his Mild and his Bitter, and his Family at nine shillings the nine-gallon cask, and his accumulated millions, "beyond the potential dream of avarice." If he chooses to live more than half his time in Whitechapel, that is no concern of anybody's; and if his wife chooses to hold a sort of court at the abandoned East, to surround herself with people unheard of in society, not to say out of it, why should she not? Any of the royal princes might have done the same thing if they had chosen and had been well-advised. Further, if, between them, Angela and her husband have established a superior Aquarium, a glorified Crystal Palace, in which all the shows are open, all the performers are drilled and trained amateurs, and all the work actually is done for nothing; in which the management is by the people themselves, who will have no interference from priest or parson, rector or curate, philanthropist or agitator; and no patronage from societies, well-intentioned young ladies, meddling benevolent persons and officious promoters, starters, and shovers-along, with half an eye fixed on heaven and the remaining eye and a half on their own advancement—if, in fact, they choose to do these things, why not? It is an excellent way of spending their time, and a change from the monotony of society.

Again, it is said that Harry, now Harry Messenger by the provision of old John Messenger's will, is the President, or the Chairman, or the Honorary Secretary—in fact, the spring and stay and prop of a new and most formidable Union or Association, which threatens, unless it be nipped in the bud, very considerable things of the greatest importance to the country. It is, in fact, a League of Working-men for the promotion and advancement of their own interests. Its prospectus sets forth that, having looked in vain among the candidates for the House of Commons for any representative who had been in the past, or was likely to be in the future, of the slightest use to them in the House; having found that neither Conservatives, nor Liberals, nor Radicals have ever been, or are ever likely to be, prepared with any real measure which should in the least concern themselves and their own wants; and fully recognizing the fact that in the debates of the House the interests of labor and the duties of Government toward the laboring classes are never recognized or understood—the working-men of the country hereby form themselves into a General League or Union, which shall have no other object whatever than the study of their own rights and interests. The question of wages will be left to the different unions, except in such cases where there is no union, or where the men are inarticulate (as in the leading case, now some ten years old, of the gas-stokers) through ignorance and drink. And the immediate questions before the union will be, first, the dwelling-houses of the working-men, which are to be made clean, safe, and healthy; next, their food and drink, which are to be unadulterated, pure, and genuine, and are to pass through no more hands than is necessary, and to be distributed at the actual cost price without the intervention of small shops; next, instruction, for which purpose the working-men will elect their own school boards, and burn all the foolish reading-books at present in use, and abolish spelling as a part of education, and teach the things necessary for all trades; next, clothing, which will be made for them by their own men working for themselves, without troubling the employers of labor at all; next, a newspaper of their own, which will refuse any place to political agitators, leaders, partisans, and professional talkers, and be devoted to the questions which really concern working-men, and especially the question of how best to employ the power which is in their hands, and report continually what is doing, what must be done, and how it must be done. And lastly, emigration, so that in every family it shall be considered necessary for some to go, and the whole country shall be mapped out into districts, and only a certain number be allowed to remain.

Now, the world being so small as it is, and Englishmen and Scotchmen being so masterful that they must needs go straight to the front and stay there, it cannot but happen that the world will presently—that is, in two generations, or three at the most—be overrun with the good old English blood: whereupon till the round earth gets too small, which will not happen for another ten thousand years or so, there will be the purest, most delightful, and most heavenly Millennium. Rich people may come into it if they please, but they will not be wanted: in fact, rich people will die out, and it will soon come to be considered an unhappy thing, as it undoubtedly is, to be born rich.

—"Whose daughters ye are," concluded the curate, closing his book, "as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."

He led the way into the vestry, where the book lay open, and sitting at the table he made the proper entries.

Then Harry took his place and signed. Now, behold! as he took the pen in his hand, Lord Jocelyn artfully held blotting-paper in readiness, and in such a manner as to hide the name of the bride; then Angela signed; then the witnesses, Lord Jocelyn and Captain Sorensen. And then there were shaking of hands and kissing. And before they came away the curate ventured timidly to whisper congratulations and that he had no idea of the honor. And then Angela stopped him, and bade him to her wedding-feast that evening at the new Palace of Delight.

Then Lord Jocelyn distributed largess, the largest kind of largess, among the people of the church.

But it surely was the strangest of weddings. For when they reached the church door the bride and bridegroom kissed each other, and then he placed her in the carriage, in which the Davenants and Lord Jocelyn also seated themselves, and so they drove off.

"We shall see her again to-night," said Harry. "Come, Dick, we have got a long day to got through—seven hours. Let us go for a walk. I can't sit down; I can't rest; I can't do anything. Let us go for a walk and wrangle."

They left the girls and strode away, and did not return until it was past six o'clock, and already growing dark.

The girls, in dreadful lowness of spirits, and feeling as flat as so many pancakes, returned to their house and sat down with their hands in their laps, to do nothing for seven hours. Did one ever hear that the maidens at a marriage—do the customs of any country present an example of such a thing—returned to the bride's house without either bride or bridegroom? Did one ever hear of a marriage where the groom left the bride at the church door, and went away for a six hours' walk?

As for Captain Sorensen, he went to the Palace and pottered about, getting snubbed by the persons in authority. There was still much to be done before the evening, but there was time: all would be done. Presently he went away; but he, too, was restless and agitated; he could not rest at home; the possession of the secret, the thought of his daughter's future, the strange and unlooked-for happiness that had come to him in his old age—these things agitated him; nor could even his fiddle bring him any consolation; and the peacefulness of the Almshouse, which generally soothed him, this day irritated him. Therefore he wandered about, and presently appeared at the House, were he took dinner with the girls, and they talked about what would happen.

The first thing that happened was the arrival of a cart—a spring-cart—with the name of a Regent Street firm upon it. The men took out a great quantity of parcels and brought them into the show-room. All the girls ran down to see what it meant, because on so great a day everything, said Nelly, must mean something.

"Name of Hermitage?" asked the man. "This is for you, miss. Name of Sorensen? This is for you." And so on, a parcel for every one of the girls.

Then he went away, and they all looked at each other.

"Hadn't you better," asked Captain Sorensen, "open the parcels, girls?"

They opened them.

"Oh—h!"

Behold! for every girl such a present as none of them had ever imagined! The masculine pen cannot describe the sweet things which they found there; not silks and satins, but pretty things; with boots, because dressmakers are apt to be shabby in the matter of boots; and with handkerchiefs and pretty scarfs and gloves and serviceable things of all sorts.

More than this: there was a separate parcel tied up in white paper for every girl, and on it, in pencil, "For the wedding supper at the Palace of Delight." And in it gauze, or lace, for bridemaid's head-dress, and white kid gloves, and a necklace with a locket, and inside the locket a portrait of Miss Kennedy, and outside her Christian name, Angela. Also, for each girl a little note, "For ——, with Miss Messenger's love;" but for Nelly, whose parcel was like Benjamin's mess, the note was, "For Nelly, with Miss Messenger's kindest love."

"That," said Rebekah, but without jealousy, "is because you were Miss Kennedy's favorite. Well! Miss Messenger must be fond of her, and no wonder!"

"No wonder at all," said Captain Sorensen.

And nobody guessed. Nobody had the least suspicion.

While they were all admiring and wondering, Mrs. Bormalack ran over breathless.

"My dears!" she cried, "look what's come!"

Nothing less than a beautiful black silk dress.

"Now go away, Captain Sorensen," she said; "you men are only hindering. And we've got to try on things. Oh, good gracious! To think that Miss Messenger would remember me, of all people in the world! To be sure, Mr. Bormalack was one of her collectors, and she may have heard about me——"

"No," said Rebekah, "it is through Miss Kennedy; no one has been forgotten who knew her."

At seven o'clock that evening the great hall of the Palace was pretty well filled with guests. Some of them, armed with white wands, acted as stewards, and it was understood that on the arrival of Miss Messenger a lane was to be formed, and the procession to the dais at the end of the hall was to pass through that lane.

Outside, in the vestibule, stood the wedding-party, waiting: the bridegroom, with his best man, and the bridemaids in their white dresses, flowing gauze and necklaces, and gloves, and flowers—a very sweet and beautiful bevy of girls; Harry for the last time in his life, he thought with a sigh, in evening-dress. Within the hall there were strange rumors flying about. It was said that Miss Messenger herself had been married that morning, and that the procession would be for her wedding; but others knew better: it was Miss Kennedy's wedding; she had married Harry Goslett, the man they called Gentleman Jack; and Miss Kennedy, everybody knew, was patronized by Miss Messenger.

At ten minutes past seven, two carriages drew up. From the first of these descended Harry's bride, led by Lord Jocelyn; and from the second the Davenants.

Yes, Harry's bride. But whereas in the morning she had been dressed in a plain white frock and white bonnet like her bridemaids—she was now arrayed in white satin, mystic, wonderful, with white veil and white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair.

Harry stepped forward with beating heart.

"Take her, boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But you have married—not Miss Kennedy at all—but Angela Messenger."

Harry took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. What did Lord Jocelyn mean?

"Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive me."

Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before them all. But he could not speak, because all in a moment the sense of what this would mean poured upon his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been alone.

It was Miss Kennedy, indeed, but glorified into a great lady; oh!—oh—Miss Messenger!

The girls, frightened, were shrinking together; even Rebekah was afraid at the great and mighty name of Messenger.

Angela went among them, and kissed them all with words of encouragement. "Can you not love me, Nelly," she said, "as well when I am rich as when I was poor?"

Then the chief officers of the brewery advanced, offering congratulations in timid accents, because they knew now that Miss Kennedy, the dressmaker, of whom such hard things had been sometimes said in their own presence and by their own wives, was no other than the sole partner in the brewery, and that her husband had worked among them for a daily wage. What did these things mean? They made respectable men afraid. One person there was, however, who at sight of Miss Messenger, for whom he was waiting with anxious heart, having a great desire to present his own case of unrewarded zeal, turned pale, and broke through the crowd with violence and fled. It was Uncle Bunker.

And then the stewards appeared at the open doors, and the procession was formed.

First the stewards themselves—being all clerks of the brewery—walked proudly at the head, carrying their white wands like rifles. Next came Harry and the bride, at sight of whom the guests shouted and roared; next came Dick Coppin with Nelly, and Lord Jocelyn with Rebekah, and the chief brewer with Lady Davenant, of course in her black velvet and war-paint, and Lord Davenant with Mrs. Bormalack, and the chief accountant with another bridesmaid, and Captain Sorensen with another, and then the rest.

Then the organ burst into a wedding march, rolling and pealing about the walls and roof of the mighty hall, and amid its melodious thunder, and the shouts of the wedding-guests, Harry led his bride slowly through the lane of curious and rejoicing faces, till they reached the dais.

When all were arranged with the bride seated in the middle, her husband standing at her right and the bridemaids grouped behind them, Lord Jocelyn stepped to the front and read in a loud voice part of the deed of gift, which he then gave with a profound bow to Angela, who placed it in her husband's hands.

Then she stepped forward and raised her veil, and stood before them all, beautiful as the day, and with tears in her eyes. Yet she spoke in firm and clear accents which all could hear. It was her first and last public speech; for Angela belongs to that rapidly diminishing body of women who prefer to let the men do all the public speaking.

"My dear friends," she said, "my kind friends: I wish first that you should clearly understand that this Palace has been invented and designed for you by my husband. All I have done is to build it. Now it is yours, with all it contains. I pray God that it may be used worthily, and for the joy and happiness of all. I declare this Palace of Delight open, the property of the people, to be administered and governed by them, and them alone, in trust for each other."

This was all she said; and the people cheered again, and the organ played "God Save the Queen."

With this simple ceremony was the Palace of Delight thrown open to the world. What better beginning could it have than a wedding party? What better omen could there be than that the Palace, like the Garden of Eden, should begin with the happiness of a wedded pair?

At this point there presented itself, to those who drew up the programme, a grave practical difficulty. It was this. The Palace could only be declared open in the great hall itself. Also, it could be only in the great hall that the banquet could take place. Now, how were the fifteen hundred guests to be got out of the way and amused while the tables were laid and the cloth spread? There could not be, it is true, the splendor and costly plate and Épergnes and flowers of my Lord Mayor's great dinner, but ornament of some kind there must be upon the tables; and even with an army of drilled waiters it takes time to lay covers for fifteen hundred people.

But there was no confusion. Once more the procession was formed and marched round the hall, headed by the band of the Guards, visiting first the gymnasium, then the library, then the concert-room, and lastly the theatre. Here they paused, and the bridal party took their seats. The people poured in; when every seat was taken, the stewards invited the rest into the concert-room. In the theatre a little sparkling comedy was played; in the concert-room a troupe of singers discoursed sweet madrigals and glees. Outside the waiters ran backward and forward as busy as Diogenes with his tub, but more to the purpose.

When, in something over an hour, the performances were finished, the stewards found that the tables were laid, one running down the whole length of the hall, and shorter ones across the hall. Everybody had a card with his place upon it; there was no confusion, and, while trumpeters blared a welcome, they all took their places in due order.

Angela and her husband sat in the middle of the long table; at Angela's left hand was Lord Jocelyn, at Harry's right Lady Davenant. Opposite the bride and bridegroom sat the chief brewer and the chief accountant. The bridemaids spread out right and left. All Angela's friends and acquaintances of Stepney Green were there, except three. For old Mr. Maliphant was sitting as usual in the boarding-house, conversing with unseen persons, and laughing and brandishing a pipe; and with him Daniel Fagg sat hugging his book. And in his own office sat Bunker, sick at heart. For he remembered his officious private letter to Miss Messenger, and he felt that he had indeed gone and done it.

The rest of the long table was filled up by the clerks and superior officers of the brewery; at the shorter tables sat the rest of the guests, including even the draymen and errand-boys. And so the feast began, while the band of the Guards played for them.

It was a royal feast, with the most magnificent cold sirloins of roast beef and rounds of salt beef, legs of mutton, saddles of mutton, loins of veal, ribs of pork, legs of pork, great hams, huge turkeys, capons, fowls, ducks, and geese, all done to a turn; so that the honest guests fell to with a mighty will, and wished that such a wedding might come once a month at least, with such a supper. And Messenger's beer, as much as you pleased, for everybody. At a moment like this, would one, even at the high table, venture to ask, to say nothing of wishing for, aught but Messenger's beer?

After the hacked and mangled remains of the first course were removed, there came puddings, pies, cakes, jellies, ices, blanc-mange, all kinds of delicious things.

And after this was done and eating was stayed and only the memory left of the enormous feed, the chief brewer rose and proposed in a few words the health of the bride and bridegroom. He said that it would be a lasting sorrow to all of them that they had not been present at the auspicious event of the morning; but that it was in some measure made up to them by the happiness they had enjoyed together that evening. If anything, he added, could make them pray more heartily for the happiness of the bride, it would be the thought that she refused to be married from her house in the West End, but came to Stepney among the workmen and managers of her own brewery, and preferred to celebrate her wedding-feast in the magnificent hall which she had given to the people of the place. And he had one more good thing to tell them. Miss Messenger, when she gave that precious thing, her hand, retained her name. There would still be a Messenger at the head of the good old house.

Harry replied in a few words, and the wedding-cake went round. Then Dick Coppin proposed success to the Palace of Delight.

"Harry," whispered Angela, "if you love me, speak now, from your very heart."

He sprang to his feet, and spoke to the people as they had never heard any yet speak.

After telling them what the Palace was, what it was meant to be, a place for the happiness and recreation of all; how they were to make their own amusements for themselves; how there were class-rooms where all kinds of arts and accomplishments would be taught; how, to insure order and good behavior, it was necessary that they should form their own volunteer police; how there were to be no politics and no controversies within those walls, and how the management of all was left to committees of their own choosing, he said:

"Friends all, this is indeed such a thing as the world has never yet seen. You have been frequently invited to join together and combine for the raising of wages; you are continually invited to follow leaders who promise to reform land laws, when you have had no land and never will have any; to abolish the House of Lords, in which you have no part, share, or lot; to sweep away a church which does not interfere with you; but who have nothing—no nothing to offer you, out of which any help or advantage will come to you. And you are always being told to consider life as a long period of resignation under inevitable suffering; and you are told to submit your reason, your will, yourselves, to authority, and all will be well with you. No one yet has given you the chance of making yourselves happy. In this place you will find, or you will make for yourselves, all the things which make the lives of the rich happy. Here you will have music, dancing, singing, acting, painting, reading, games of skill, games of chance, companionship, cheerfulness, light, warmth, comfort—everything. When these things have been enjoyed for a time they will become a necessity for you, and a part of the education for your young people. They will go on to desire other things which cannot be found by any others for you, but which must be found by yourselves and for yourselves. My wife has placed in your hands the materials for earthly joy; it lies with you to learn how to use them; it lies with you to find what other things are necessary; how the people, who have all the power there is, must find out what they want, and help themselves to it, standing shoulder to shoulder by means of that power; how those enemies are not the rich, whom your brawlers in Whitechapel Road ignorantly accuse, but quite another kind—and you must find out for yourselves who these are. It is not by setting poor against rich, or by hardening the heart of rich against poor, that you will succeed; it is by independence and by knowledge. All sorts and conditions of men are alike. As are the vices of the rich, so are your own; as are your virtues, so are theirs. But, hitherto, the rich have had things which you could not get. Now all that is altered: in the Palace of Delight we are equal to the richest; there is nothing which we, too, cannot have; what they desire we desire; what they have we shall have; we can all love; we can all laugh; we can all feel the power of music; we can dance and sing; or we can sit in peace and meditate. In this Palace, as in the outer world, remember that you have the power. The time for envy, hatred, and accusations has gone by; because we working-men have, at last, all the power there is to have. Let us use it well. But the Palace will be for joy and happiness, not for political wrangles. Brothers and sisters, we will no longer sit down in resignation; we will take the same joy in this world that the rich have taken. Life is short for us all; let us make the most of it for ourselves and for each other. There are so many joys within our reach; there are so many miseries we can abolish. In this house, which is a Temple of Praise, we shall all together continually be thinking how to bring more sunshine into our lives, more change, more variety, more happiness."

A serious ending; because Harry spoke from his heart. As he took his seat in deep silence, the organ broke forth again and played, while the people stood, the grand Old Hundredth Psalm.

A serious ending to the feast; but life is serious.

Ten minutes later the bride rose, and the band played a joyful march, while the wedding-procession once more formed and marched down the hall, and the people poured out into the streets to cheer, and Angela and her husband drove away for their honeymoon.

The Palace of Delight is in working order now, and Stepney is already transformed. A new period began on the opening night for all who were present. For the first time they understood that life may be happy; for the first time they resolved that they would find out for themselves the secret of happiness. The angel with the flaming sword has at last stepped from the gates of the earthly Paradise, and we may now enter therein and taste, unreproved, of all the fruits except the apples of the Tree of Life—which has been removed, long since, to another place.

THE END.