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The party arranged themselves at table. The bride and bridegroom sat in the centre, and looked out upon the gay landscape. They talked and drank healths, and the most cheerful humour reigned; the bride’s parents were quite happy; the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, eat but little, and took no part in the conversation. He started when some musical sounds rolled down from above, but grew calm again on finding it was nothing but the soft notes of a bugle, which wandered along with a pleasant murmur over the shrubs and through the park, till they died away on the distant hills. Roderick had stationed the musicians in the gallery overhead, and Emilius was satisfied with this arrangement. Toward the end of the dinner he called his butler, and turning to his bride, said, ‘My love, let poverty also have a share of our superfluities.’ He then ordered him to send several bottles of wine, some pastry, and other dishes in abundant portions, to the poor couple, so that with them also this day might be a day of rejoicing, unto which in after-times they might look back with delight. ‘See, my friend,’ cried Roderick, ‘how beautifully all things in this world hang together. My idle trick of busying myself about other people’s concerns, and my chattering, though you are for ever finding fault with them, have after all been the occasion of this good deed.’ Several persons began making pretty speeches to their host on his compassion and kind heart, and the young lady next to Roderick lisped about romantic feelings and sentimental magnanimity. ‘O, hold your tongues,’ cried Emilius indignantly. ‘This is no good action; it is no action at all; it is nothing. When swallows and linnets feed themselves with the crumbs that are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and carry them to their young ones in their nests, shall not I remember a poor brother who needs my help? If I durst follow my heart, ye would laugh and jeer at me, just as ye have laughed and jeered at many others who have gone forth into the wilderness, that they might hear no more of this world and its generosity.’

Everybody was silent, and Roderick, perceiving the most vehement displeasure in his friend’s glowing eyes, feared he might forget himself still more in his present ungracious mood, and tried to give the conversation a sudden turn upon other subjects. But Emilius was becoming restless and absent; his eyes were continually wandering toward the upper gallery, where the servants who lived in the top story had many things to do.

‘Who is that ugly old woman,’ he at length asked, ‘that is so busy there, going backwards and forwards, in her gray cloak?’ ‘She is one of my attendants,’ said his bride; ‘she is to overlook and manage my waiting-maids and the other girls.’ ‘How can you bear to have anything so hideous always at your elbow?’ replied Emilius. ‘Let her alone,’ answered the young lady; ‘God meant the ugly to live as well as the handsome: and she is such a good, honest creature, she may be of great use to us.’

On rising from table, everybody pressed round the new husband, again wished him joy, and urgently begged that he would consent to their having a ball. The bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his forehead: ‘You will not deny your wife’s first request, my beloved; we have all been looking forward with delight to this moment. It is so long since I danced last, and you have never yet seen me dance. Have you no curiosity how I shall acquit myself in this new character? My mother tells me I look better than at any other time.’

‘I never saw you thus cheerful,’ said Emilius; ‘I will be no disturber of your joys: do just what you please; only let me bargain for nobody asking me to make myself ridiculous by any clumsy capers.’