Only, he laid his hand on Kate's drooping head, with a "Heaven bless you, my child!" so fervently uttered that she felt repaid for all the humiliation she had undergone.
So very quietly at Danton Hall December wore away, and Christmas-eve dawned, Grace Danton's wedding-day.

About ten in the morning the large, roomy, old-fashioned family sleigh drove up before the front door, and the bridal party entered, and were whirled to the church.

A very select party indeed; the bride and bridegroom, the bride's brother, and the bridegroom's two daughters.
Grace's brown velvet bonnet, brown silk dress, and seal jacket were not exactly the prescribed attire for a bride; but with the hazel hair, smooth and shining, and the hazel eyes full of happy light, Grace looked very sweet and fair.
Eeny, in pale silk and a pretty hat with a long white plume, looked fair as a lily and happy as a queen, and very proud of her post of bride-maid.
And Kate, who was carrying her cross bravely now, very simply attired, sat beside Doctor Frank and tried to listen and be interested in what he was saying, and all the time feeling like one in some unnatural dream.
She saw the dull, gray, sunless sky, speaking of coming storm, the desolate snow-covered fields, the quiet village, and the little church, with its tall spire and glittering cross.

She saw it all in a vague, lost sort of way, and was in the church and seated in a pew, and listening and looking on, like a person walking in her sleep.

Her father going to be married! How strange and unnatural it seemed.