Way Down East | Page 9

put the ring on her finger, Anna's hand trembled so violently that the ring fell to the floor and rolled away. Sanderson's face turned pale. It seemed to him like a providential dispensation. For some minutes, the assembled company joined in the hunt for the ring. It was found at length by the yellow-haired housekeeper, who returned it with her most wolfish grin.
"Trust Bertha Harris to find things!" said the clergyman.
The ceremony proceeded without further incident. The final words were pronounced and Anna sank into a chair, relieved that it was over, whether it was for better or for worse.
Sanderson hurried her into the carriage before the clergyman and the witnesses could offer their congratulations. He pulled her away from the yellow-haired housekeeper, who would have smothered her in an embrace, and they departed without the customary handshake from the officiating clergyman.
"You were not very cordial, dear," she said, as they rolled along through the early winter landscape.
"Confound them all. I hated to see them near you"--and then, in answer to her questioning gaze--"because I love you so much, darling. I hate to see anyone touch you."
The trees were bare; the fields stretched away brown and flat, like the folds of a shroud, and the sun was veiled by lowering clouds of gray. It was not a cheerful day for a wedding.
"Lennox, did you remember that this is Friday? And I have on a black dress."
"And now that Mrs. Lennox has settled the question of to wed or not to wed, by wedding--behold, she is worrying herself about her frock and the color of it, and the day of the week and everything else. Was there ever such a dear little goose?" He pinched her cheek, and she--she smiled up at him, her fears allayed.
"And why don't you ask where we are going, least curious of women?"
"I forgot; indeed I did."
"We are going to the White Rose Inn. Ideal name for a place in which to spend one's honeymoon, isn't it?"
"Any place would be ideal with you Lennie," and she slipped her little hand into his ruggeder palm.
At last the White Rose Inn was sighted; it was one of those modern hostelries, built on an old English model. The windows were muslined, the rooms were wainscoted in oak, the furniture was heavy and cumbersome. Anna was delighted with everything she saw. Sanderson had had their sitting-room filled with crimson roses, they were everywhere; banked on the mantelpiece, on the tables and window-sills. Their perfume was to Anna like the loving embrace of an old friend. Jacqueminots had been so closely associated with her acquaintance with Sanderson, in after years she could never endure their perfume and their scarlet petals unnerved her, as the sight of blood does some women.
A trim English maid came to assist "Mrs. Lennox," to unpack her things. Lunch was waiting in the sitting-room. Sanderson gave minute orders about the icing of his own particular brand of champagne, which he had had sent from Boston.
Anna had recovered her good spirits. It seemed "such a jolly lark," as her husband said.
"Sweetheart, your happiness," he said, and raised his glass to hers. Her eyes sparkled like the champagne. The honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern had begun very merrily.

CHAPTER V.
A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
"The moon--the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shady--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range Is the moon--so called--of honey."--Hood.
"My dear, will you kindly pour me a second cup of coffee? Not because I really want it, you know, but entirely for the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your pretty little hands pattering about the cups."
Lennox Sanderson, in a crimson velvet smoking jacket, was regarding Anna with the most undisguised admiration from the other side of the round table, that held their breakfast,--their first honeymoon breakfast, as Anna supposed it to be.
"Anything to please my husband," she answered with a flitting blush.
"Your husband? Ah, say it again; it sounds awfully good from you."
"So you don't really care for any more coffee, but just want to see my hands among the cups. How appreciative you are!" And there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she began with great elaboration the pantomimic representation of pouring a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream; and concluded by handing the empty cup to Sanderson. "It would be such a pity to waste the coffee, Lennie, when you only wanted to see my hands."
"If I am not going to have the coffee, I insist on both the hands," he said, taking them and kissing them repeatedly.
"I suppose I'll have to give it to you on those terms," and she proceeded to