As Mrs. Tramlay remarked at an earlier stage of this narrative, June was as late in the season as was fashionable for a wedding. Thanks, however, to a large infusion of the unexpected into the plans of all concerned, Lucia’s wedding did not have to be deferred until after June. All the invited guests pronounced it as pretty an affair of its kind as the season had known, and the more so because the bride and groom really made a very handsome and noteworthy couple,—an occurrence quite as unusual in the city as in the country.

The only complaints that any one heard were from Haynton and vicinity. The friends and acquaintances of the Hayn family held many informal meetings and voted it an outrage that when such a lot of money was to be spent on a wedding it should all be squandered on New York people, who had so much of similar blessings that they did not know how to appreciate them, instead of Haynton, where the couple would sooner or later make their home; for had not Phil selected a villa-site for himself, on his father’s old farm?

No invitations by card reached Haynton, but Phil’s pastor went down quietly to the city to assist at the marriage-service, by special arrangement, and Hayn Farm of course sent a large delegation, and the head of the family saw to it that none of the masculine members wore garments of the Sarah Tweege cut longer than was required to make a thorough change at a reputable clothing-store. As for Mrs. Hayn, her prospective daughter found time enough to assume filial duties in advance, and the old lady was so pleased with the change that ever afterward she was what the late lamented Mr. Boffin would have termed “a high-flyer at fashion.”

But there are souls who laugh to scorn any such trifling obstructions as lack of formal invitation, and one of these was Sol Mantring’s wife. She tormented her husband until that skipper found something that would enable him to pay the expense of running his sloop to New York and back; his wife sailed with him as sole passenger, and on the morning of the wedding she presented herself at the church an hour before the appointed time, and in raiment such as had not been seen in that portion of New York since the days when sullen brownstone fronts began to disfigure farms that had been picturesque and smiling. She laid siege to the sexton; she told him who she was, and how she had held Phil in her arms again and again when he had the whooping-cough, and yet again when he had scarlet fever, although she ran the risk of taking the dread malady home to her own children, and the sexton, in self-defence, was finally obliged to give her a seat in the gallery, over the rail of which, as near the altar as possible, her elaborately-trimmed Sunday bonnet caught the eyes of every one who entered. What all Haynton did not know about that wedding, three days later, was not worth knowing: it was a thousand times more satisfactory than the combined reports in the morning papers, all of which Mrs. Mantring carried home with her and preserved between the leaves of her family Bible for the remainder of her days, and every one in the village read them, even Sarah Tweege, who magnanimously waived the apparent slight implied by Phil not having his wedding-suit made by her.

Mrs. Hayn, Senior, no longer had to wish in vain for a place in the city where she might sometimes forget the cares and humdrum of farm-house life. Risky as the experiment seemed from the society point of view, Lucia, backed by Margie, insisted upon making her at home in the city whenever she chose to come; and, although some friends of the family would sometimes laugh in private over the old lady’s peculiarities of accent and grammar, there were others who found real pleasure in the shrewd sense and great heart that had been developed by a life in which the wife had been obliged to be the partner and equal of her husband.

Before a year passed there was another wedding. Agnes Dinon changed her name without any misgivings; she had previously confessed to Lucia, who in spite of the difference in years seemed to become her favorite confidante, that she had always admired some things about Mr. Marge, and that the business-misfortunes which had compelled him to become the active manager of the Haynton Bay Improvement Company seemed to supply what had been lacking in his character and manner.

Other people who were no longer young were gainers by the culmination of the incidents narrated in this tale. Tramlay and his wife seemed to renew their youth under the influence of the new love that pervaded their home, and almost daily the merchant blessed his partner for gains more precious than those of business. He never wearied of rallying his wife on her early apprehensions regarding the acquaintance between her daughter and the young man from the country. Mrs. Tramlay’s invariable reply was the question,—

“But who could have foreseen it? I can’t, to this day, understand how it all came about.”

“Nor I,” her husband would reply. “As I’ve said before, it’s country luck. Nine men of every ten who amount to anything in New York come from the country. Remember it, my dear, when next you have a daughter who you think needs a husband.”

THE END.