The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-09-17
A WEDDING DAY.
BY MARY L. EARLE.

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aid through the woods where brown
Tints needles carpeted it. up to the Hill
dreth garden. The crape-myrtles stood
stiff as sentinels beside the gate, but
the walk led up between its borders
in confident welcome to a blank open
space, all gray and powdery, as if it
had never seen the sunlight or felt moist
ure. The girl stood breathless. gazing at
it. The last of the spring roses scat
tered their petals Iavishly around the
beds, and added their fragrance to the
sweetness of the cape jasmine and the
tiny fluffy balls of the acacias, but the
Hildreth house was gone. The holly
hooks and the high shrubs seemed to
be lifting themselves on tiptoe to look
down at the scar where it had been
The breeze sighed a little through the
great Eve-oak which had spent years
in spreading wide and generous to shade
the whole south gallery, and the mock
ing birds fitted in and out of its
branches with that swift spreading of
their wings for flight which makes the
white bars in them always a revelation.
After she had seen these things with
widening eyes, the girls hand went up
to her throat, and she gave little sob.
is everything to change?" she asked
half brokenly. Something in her mood
stood between her and natural sur
prise. She felt as if she had been pre-
pared to find the place like this, but the
tears rose in her eyes as she looked, for
each familiar beauty of it was some
thing bereaved. She opened the gate
and walked between the rose bushes
toward the spot where the house had
been, but when she reached it she
turned away. She threaded all the
bowery paths, and each seemed to hold
something which she must turn away
from, too; but when she stood by the
acacia tree she put out her hand and
touched it timidly. Soon, as it did not
forbid her, she lifted her hand. drew
down a branch, and picked just one of
the tiny yellow tufts which breathe all
the sweetness of the sweetest days of love.
held it against her cheek for a moment
and then, with trembling fingers, hid it
in the dark braids of her hair.
A faint 'yo-heave-o," like the sailors
hauling up an anchor, was waited
through the garden. and the girl raised
her face and looked about her desolate-
1y. Far down Live Oak lane, between
the rounded trees. she saw the Hill
dreth house. 1t seemed to have picked
up its doorsteps and started out across
the village; there was an excited CLEAN
in its windows, and the sunlight. fall
;ng more freely on its roof than it ever
had done in the garden. gave it the
look of some tenderly shielded old per-
son that has stolen bareheaded away
from loving children. who do not re
member that age has its restlessness.
The girl couD notice now that d way
had been cleared for the house to travel
backward out of the garden, leaving the
flowers courteously, as if they were Il
royal presence, and she followed in its
path through the opened panel of fence
and on into the lane, where the blue
simmer of the gulf ended tie vistas of
light on either side of the house She
-alked eagerly, and her face dimpled
into smiles, Vet even as she smiled she
put her hand up to her hair, and the
depths of her eyes still kept their sor-
row. 81 don't see how Mrs. Hildreth
could leave her flowers" she sand once.
with a sigh.
A band of creole workmen We're pry-
ing the house along on its clumsy roll
ers, and shouting and singing resonant
ly at each slow forward lurch. Their
voices had the sweetness of a suumer
land and knowledge of the sea, and they
worked at leisure and gracefully, their
red or blue shirts shining out against
the greenery which still ctung to the
HilGreth house. for it had not laid aside
its vines, but was carrying their roots
daintily clear of the ground in baskets
Just as another dear old fugitive might
lift her skirts.
a woman with rosy cheeks and
smooth brown hair was sitting nv the
window, and as the girl approached she
reached down to help her take the long
step from the road to the door-sill
Connie Bainbridge,' she said, 81 dom
know of anyone | would rather have
come walking IN ike IllS TO act as
bridesmaid on wedding day" and she
drew her visitor into a room that was
startlingly unchanged except for the
glory of flowers with which the garden
had said good-by. It was hard to re
member that in the garden they had not
been missed at all.
The girl sank into 4 chair and looked
about her YEARLY. A long string Of
CULTS eggs, creamy ard softly fecked
hung near her on the wall. She took
hold of them as she so often had before
sind passed them through her fingers
like a rosary. Your wedding day?"
she said.
Anniversary, of course, | mean. =
Mrs. Hildreth answered, looking out
through a window that gave glimpse
of the reckoning sea. She smiled mus
ingly as she looked. There was always
something of generous content abou-
her. as if life grew sweeter and broader
with the afternoon sun; and Connie
Bainbridge remembered that when the
house had stood in its garden she herself
had never lifted the gate latch and
walked in between the roses without