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a chair. “I’ll look after everything. Just come along. It’s time we went in. The doctor is motioning for us. Awfully glad to see you at last. Too bad you had to rush so. How many years is it since I saw you? Ten! You’ve changed some, but you’re looking fine and dandy. No need to worry about anything. It’ll soon be over and the knot tied.”
    Mechanically Gordon fell into place beside the man Jefferson, who was a pleasant-faced youth, well-groomed and handsome. Looking furtively at his finely-cut, happy features, Gordon wondered if he would feel as glad as this youth seemed to be, when he walked down the aisle to meet his bride. How, by the way, would he feel if were going to be married now, - going into the face of this great company of well-dressed people to meet Miss Julia Bentley and be joined to her for life? Instinctively his soul shrank within him at the thought.
    But now the door was wide open, the organ pealing its best, and he suddenly became aware of many eyes, and of wondering how long his eyebrows would withstand the perspiration that was trickling softly down his forehead. His mustache – ridiculously appendage! why had he not removed it? – was it awry? Dared he put up his hand to see? His gloves! Would any one notice that they were not as strictly fresh as a best man’s gloves should be? Then he took his first step to the music, and it was like being pulled from a delicious morning nap and plunged into a tub of icy water.
    He walked with feet that suddenly weighed like lead, across a church that looked to be miles in width, in the face of swarms of curious eyes. He tried to reflect that these people were all strangers to him, that they were not looking at him, any way, but at the bridegroom by his side, and that it mattered very little what he did, so long as he kept still and braved it out, if only the real best man didn’t turn up until he was well out of the church. Then he could vanish in the dark, and go by some back way to a car or a taxicab and so to the station. The thought of the paper inside the gold pencil-case filled him with a sort of elation. If only he could get out of this dreadful church, he would probably get away safely. Perhaps even the incident of the wedding might prove to be his protection, for they would never seek him in a crowded church at a fashionable wedding.
    The man by his side managed him admirably, giving him a whispered hint, a shove, or a push now and then, and getting him into the proper position. It seemed as if the best man had to occupy the most trying spot in all the church, but as they put him there, of course it was right. He glanced furtively over the faces near the front, and they all looked quite satisfied, as if everything were going as it should, so he settled down to his fate, his white, strained face partly hidden by the abundant display of mustache and eyebrow. People whispered softly how handsome he looked, and some suggested that he was not so stout as when they had last seen him, ten years before. His stay in a foreign land must have done him good. One woman went so far as to tell her daughter that he was far more distinguished-looking than she had ever thought he could become, but it was wonderful what a stay in a foreign land would do to improve a person.
    The music stole onward; and slowly, gracefully, like the opening of buds into flowers, and bridal party inched along up the middle aisle until at last the bride in all the mystery of her white veil arrived, and all the maidens in their flowers and many colored gauzes were suitably disposed about her.
    The feeble old man on whose arm the bride had leaned as she came up the aisle dropped out of the possession, melting into one of the front seats, and Gordon found himself standing beside the bride. He felt sure there must be something wrong about it, and looked at his young guide with an attempt to change places with him, but the man named Jefferson held him in place with a warning eye.