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Page 297
Chapter Fifteen
Despite her own sorrows, Abby celebrated the wedding of Lucy and Arlen with joy. Arlen, jolted into greater awareness of the fragility of life, had proposed to Lucy soon after his incident with the bee sting, and she accepted.
The wagon train stopped for an entire day in the small town of El Monte, a willow-laden enclave along the San Gabriel River within the old La Puente rancho. The townsfolk, of Spanish descent, seemed suspicious at first of the settlers from the East, but their reserve thawed when they understood there was to be a wedding. Throwing themselves into the spirit of the festivities, they lent Lucy a lovely, sweeping lace gown and mantilla for her wedding attire and Arlen a snug-fitting black suit and white, frilled shirt.
In a chapel formed by the trees along the riverbank, an English-speaking priest performed the ceremony before the excited travelers and

 
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