Then he took the bride's hand and said mightily:--

"I do."

The marriage ceremony went on to its end and was over. Congratulations were offered. The register was signed and witnessed.

And old Aaron Rockharrt led his newly married wife out of the church and put her into the carriage. Then turning around to his grandchildren he said:

"You can walk back to the hotel. See that the porters send off our luggage by express to the Cataract House, Niagara Falls. They have their orders from me, but do you see that these orders are promptly obeyed.

Now, good-by."

He shook hands with Sylvan and Cora, and entered the carriage, which immediately rolled off in the direction of the railway station.

The brother and sister walked back to the hotel together.

"It will be a curious study, Cora, to see who will rule in this new firm. I believe it is universally conceded that when an old man marries a pretty young wife, he becomes her slave. But our honored grandfather has been absolute monarch so long that I doubt if he can be reduced to servitude."

"I have no doubts on the subject," replied his sister.

"I have been watching them. He is not subjugated by Rose. He is not foolishly in love with her, at his age. He likes her as he likes other agreeable accessories for his own sake. I have neither respect nor affection for Rose, yet I feel some compa.s.sion for her now. Whatever the drudgery of her life as governess may have been since she left us, long ago, it has been nothing, nothing to the penal servitude of the life upon which she has now entered. The hardest-worked governess, seamstress, or servant has some hours in the twenty-four, and some nook in the house that she can call her own where she can rest and be quiet.

But Rose Rockharrt will have no such relief! Do I not remember my dear grandmother's life? And my grandfather really did love her, if he ever loved any one on earth. This misguided young woman fondly hopes to be the ideal old man's darling. She deceives herself. She will be his slave, by day and night seldom out of his sight, never out of his service and surveillance. Possibly--for she is not a woman of principle--she may end by running away from her master, and that before long."

Cora's last words brought them to the "Ladies' Entrance" of their hotel.

"Go up stairs, Cora, and I will step into the office and see if there are any letters," said Sylvan.

Mrs. Rothsay went up into their private sitting room, dropped into a chair, took off her bonnet and began to fan herself, for her midday walk had been a very warm one.

Presently Sylvan came up with a letter in his hand.

"For you, Cora, from Uncle Fabian! There is a foreign mail just in."

"Give it to me."

Sylvan handed her the letter, Cora opened it, glanced over it, and exclaimed:

"Uncle Fabian says that he will be home the last of this month."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A CRISIS AT ROCKHOLD.

Brother and sister went to Newport and spent a month. The Dean of Olivet was in the town, but they never met him because they never went into society. Toward the last of June, Corona proposed that they should go at once to Rockhold.

The next morning brother and sister took the early train for New York.

On the morning of the second day they took the express train for Baltimore, where they stopped for another night. And on the morning of the third day they took the early train for North End, where they arrived at sunset. They went to the hotel to get dinner and to engage the one hack of the establishment to take them to Rockhold.

Almost the first man they met on the hotel porch was Mr. Clarence, who rushed to meet them.

"Hurrah, Sylvan! Hurrah, old boy! Back again! Why didn't you write or telegraph? How do you do, Cora! Ah! when will you get your roses back, my dear? And how is his Majesty? Why is he not with you? Where did you leave him?" demanded Mr. Clarence in a gale of high spirits at greeting his nephew and niece again.

"He is among the Thousand Islands somewhere with his bride," answered Cora.

"His--what?" inquired Mr. Clarence, with a puzzled air.

"His wife," said Cora.

"His wife? What on earth are you talking about, Cora? You could not have understood my question. I asked you where my father was!" said the bewildered Mr. Clarence.

"And I told you that he is on his wedding trip with his bride, among the Thousand Islands," replied Cora.

Mr. Clarence turned in a helpless manner.

"Sylvan," he said, "tell me what she means, will you?"

"Why, just what she says. Our grandfather and grandmother are on the St. Lawrence, but will be home on the first of July," Sylvan explained.

But Mr. Clarence looked from the brother to the sister and back again in the utmost perplexity.

"What sort of a stupid joke are you two trying to get off?" he inquired.

They had by this time reached the public parlor of the hotel and found seats.

"Is it possible, Uncle Clarence, that you do not know Mr. Rockharrt was married on the thirty-first of last month, in New York, to Mrs.

Stillwater?" inquired Cora.

"What! My father!"

"Why should you be amazed or incredulous, Uncle Clarence? The incomprehensible feature, to my mind, is that you should not have heard of the affair directly from grandfather himself. Has he really not written and told you of his marriage?"

"He has never told me a word of his marriage, though he has written a dozen or more letters to me within the last few weeks."

"That is very extraordinary. And did you not hear any rumor of it? Did no one chance to see the notice of it in the papers?"

"No one that I know of. No; I heard no hint of my father's marriage from any quarter, nor had I, nor any one else at Rockhold or at North End, the slightest suspicion of such a thing."

"That is very strange. It must have been in the papers," said Sylvan.

"If it was I did not see it, but, then, I never think of looking at the marriage list."

"I am inclined to think that it never got into the papers. The marriage was private, though not secret. And you, Sylvan, should have seen that the marriage was inserted in all the daily papers. It was your special duty as groomsman. But you must have forgotten it, and I never remembered to remind you of it," said Cora.

"Not I. I never forgot it, because I never once thought of it. Didn't know it was my duty to attend to it. Besides, I had so many duties. Such awful duties! Think of my having to be my own grandmother's church papa and give her away at the altar! That duty reduced me to a state of imbecility from which I have not yet recovered."

"But," said Mr. Clarence, with a look of pain on his fine, genial countenance, "it is so strange that my father never mentioned his marriage in any of his letters to me."