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GADSBY

a big church display. It’s only your vows that count.”

So but a small group stood lovingly in Gadsby’s parlor, as Parson Brown brought into unity Kathlyn and John. Kathlyn was radiantly happy; and John, our famous organist, was as happy with only charming Sarah Young at an upright piano, as any organist in a big choir loft.

But to Lady Gadsby and His Honor, this was, in a way, a sad affair; for that big mansion now had lost two of its inhabitants; and, as many old folks know, a vast gap, or chasm thus forms, backward across which flit happy visions of laughing, romping, happy girlhood; happy hours around a sitting room lamp; and loving trips in night’s small hours to a room or two, just to know that a small girl was all right, or that a big girl was not in a draft. But, though marrying off a girl will bring such a vacancy, that happy start out into a world throbbing with vitality and joy, can allay a bit of that void in a big mansion, or a small cabin. A birth, a tooth, a growth, a mating; and, again a birth, a tooth, and so on. Such is that mighty Law, which was laid down on that first of all days; and which will control Man, animal, and plant until that last of all nights.

So it was first Nancy, and now Kathlyn;

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