Still they tried to be cheerful, and
Henry Warner's merry jokes had called forth more than one gay laugh,
when the peal of bells and the roll of drums arrested their attention;
while the servants, who had learned the cause of the rejoicing, struck
up "God Save the Queen," and from an adjoining field a rival choir
sent back the stirring note of "Hail, Columbia, Happy Land." Mrs.
Jeffrey, too, was busy. In secret she had labored at the rent made
by her foot in the flag of bygone days, and now, perspiring at every
pore, she dragged it up the tower stairs, planting it herself upon the
housetop, where side by side with the royal banner it waved in the
summer breeze. And this she did, not because she cared aught for the
cable, in which she "didn't believe" and declared "would never work,"
but because she would celebrate Margaret's wedding-day, and so make
some amends for her interference when once before the "Stars and
Stripes" had floated above the old stone house.
And thus it was, amid smiles and tears, amid bells and drums, and
waving flags and merry song, amid noisy shout and booming guns, that
double bridal day was kept; and when the sun went down it left a glory
on the western clouds, as if they, too, had donned their best attire
in honor of the union.
* * * * *
It is moonlight on the land--glorious, beautiful moonlight. On Hagar's
peaceful grave it falls, and glancing from the polished stone shines
across the fields upon the old stone house, where all is cheerless
now, and still.
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