The wedding was a very quiet and modest affair—a little quieter and more
modest, to tell the truth, than _quite_ appealed to Stella’s ambitious
notions of grandeur, though it was a church wedding, too, with a small
reception afterward.
Of course every one was tremendously impressed by the bridegroom, and
everybody said how sweet the bride looked. Aunt Alice wept happy tears on
people’s shoulders, and between whiles talked faster than any one else.
Meade gave his daughter away, and looked very proud, though also a little
pathetic in his dress suit.
There were all sorts of nice gifts for the bride, most of which, for
the time being, would have to be left behind. And one of the gifts gave
Stella a real momentary, ungraspable heartache. It was a small cut-glass
fruit bowl, and within lay a blank card on which, in cramped scrawl,
appeared the single word: Jerome.