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XXIV
The Minister's Call

Just Wait

"Rosemary!"

Grandmother called imperiously, but there was no answer. "Rosemary!" she cried, shrilly.

"She ain't here, Ma," said Matilda. "I reckon she's gone out somewheres."

"Did you ever see the beat of it? She's getting high and mighty all of a sudden. This makes twice lately that she's gone out without even tellin' us, let alone askin' whether she could go or not. Just wait till she comes back."

Matilda laughed in her most aggravating manner. "I reckon we'll have to wait," she retorted, "as long as we don't know where she's gone or when she's comin' back."

"Just wait," repeated Grandmother, ominously. "I'll tell her a thing or two. You just see if I don't!"

The fires of her wrath smouldered dully, ready to blaze forth at any moment. Matilda waited with the same sort of pleasurable excitement which impels a child to wait under the open window of a house in which there is good reason to believe that an erring playmate is about to receive punishment.

Tense Silence

"What's she been doin' all day?" Grandmother demanded.

"Nothin' more than usual, I guess," Matilda replied. "She did up the work this morning and got dinner, and washed the dishes and went to the store, and when she come back, she was up in the attic for a spell, and then she went out without sayin' where she was goin'."

"In the attic? What was she doin' in the attic?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"She's got no call to go to the attic. If I want her to go up there, I'll tell her so. This is my house."

"Yes," returned Matilda, with a sigh. "I've heard tell that it was."

"Humph!" grunted Grandmother.

For an hour or more there was silence, not peaceful, but tense, for Grandmother was thinking of things she might say to the wayward Rosemary. Then the culprit came in, cheerfully singing to herself, and unmindful of impending judgment.

"Rosemary!"

"Yes, Grandmother. What is it?"

"Come here!"

Grandmother chides Rosemary

Rosemary obeyed readily enough, though she detected warlike possibilities in the tone.

"Set down! I've got something to say to you!"

"I have something to say to you, too, Grandmother," Rosemary replied, taking the chair indicated by the shaking forefinger. For the first time in her life she was not afraid of the old lady.

"I've noticed," Grandmother began, tremulously, "that you're getting high and mighty all of a sudden. You've gone out twice lately without askin' if you might go, and I won't have it. Do you understand?"

"I hear you," the girl answered. "Is that all?"

"No, 'tain't all. You don't seem to have any sense of your position. Here you are a poor orphan, beholden to your grandmother for every mouthful you eat and all the clothes you wear, and if you can't behave yourself better 'n you've been doin', you shan't stay."

A faint smile appeared around the corners of Rosemary's mouth, then vanished. "Very well, Grandmother," she answered, demurely, rising from her chair. "I'll go whenever you want me to. Shall I go now?"

"Set down," commanded the old lady. "I'd like to know where you'd go!"

"I'd go to Mrs. Marsh's; I think she'd take me in."

Rosemary's Rejoinder

"You've got another think comin' then," Grandmother sneered. "Didn't I tell you to set down?"

"Yes," returned Rosemary, coolly, "but I'm not going to. I said I had something to say to you. I'm going to be married next week to Alden Marsh. I've taken enough of the money my father left me to buy a white dress and a new hat, and the storekeeper has sent to the City for me for some white shoes and stockings. I'm going to have some pretty underwear, too, and a grey travelling dress. I've just come from the dressmakers, now."

"Money!" screamed the old lady. "So that's what you've been doin' in the attic. You're a thief, that's what you are! Your mother was – "

"Stop!" said Rosemary. Her voice was low and controlled, but her face was very white. "Not another word against my mother. You've slandered her for the last time. I am not a poor orphan, beholden to my grandmother for the food I eat and the clothes I wear. On the contrary, you and Aunt Matilda are dependent upon me, and have been for a good many years. I have father's letter here. Do you care to read it?"

Shaken from head to foot, the old lady sank into her chair. She was speechless, but her eyes blazed. Matilda sat by the window, dumb with astonishment. This was not at all what she had expected. Rosemary had drawn a yellow old letter from the recesses of her brown gingham gown and was offering it to Grandmother. The sight of it had affected the old lady powerfully.

The Money

"Very well," Rosemary was saying, as she returned the letter to its hiding-place. "In case you've forgotten, I'll tell you what's in it. The day father sailed up the coast, he sent you a draft for more than eleven thousand dollars. He said it was for me – for my clothes and my education, in case anything happened to him. He said that you were to give me whatever I might want or need, as long as the money lasted. I'll leave it to you whether you've carried out his instructions or not.

"Now that I'm going to be married, I've taken the liberty of helping myself to a small part of what is my own. There's almost two thousand dollars left, and you're quite welcome to it, but I won't be married in brown gingham nor go to my husband in ragged shoes, and if I think of anything else I want, I'm going to have it."

"Ma," said Matilda, tremulously, "if this is so, we ain't done right by Rosemary."

"It's so," Rosemary continued, turning toward the figure at the window. "You can read the letter if you want to." She put her hand to her breast again, but Matilda shook her head.

Grandmother's Decision

"If you want me to," the girl went on, "I'll go now. Mrs. Marsh will take me in, but I'll have to explain why I ask it. I haven't told Alden, or his mother, and I don't want to. I won't bring shame upon those of my own blood if I can help it. But what I've had, I've earned, and I don't feel indebted to you for anything, not even a single slice of bread. That's all."

Grandmother staggered to her feet, breathing heavily. Her face was colourless, her lips ashen grey. "Rosemary Starr," she said, with long pauses between the words, "I'll never – speak to – you – again as – long as – I – live." Then she fell back into her chair, with her hand upon her heart.

"Very well, Grandmother," Rosemary returned, shrugging her shoulders. "You'll have to do as you like about that."

By supper-time the household was calm again – upon the surface. True to her word, Grandmother refused to communicate directly with Rosemary. She treated the girl as she might a piece of furniture – unworthy of attention except in times of actual use.

She conveyed her wishes through Matilda, as a sort of human telephone. "Matilda," she would say, "will you ask Rosemary to fill the tea-pot with hot water?" And, again: "Matilda, will you tell Rosemary to put out the milk pitcher and to lock the back door?" It was not necessary; however, for Matilda to tell Rosemary. The girl accepted the requests as though they had been given directly – with her head held high and the faintest shadow of an ironical smile upon her face.

Left in the Dark

After supper, while Rosemary was washing the dishes, Grandmother took the lamp. She was half-way to the door when Matilda inquired: "Where are you goin', Ma?"

"I'm goin' up to my room, to set and read a spell."

"But – but the lamp?"

"I need it to read by," Grandmother announced, with considerable asperity, "and you don't need to hunt around for no more lamps, neither. I've got 'em all put away."

"But," Matilda objected; "me and Rosemary – ."

"You and Rosemary! Humph! You can set in the dark or anywhere else you please." With that she slammed the door and was gone. Rosemary came in, after a little, humming to herself with an assumed cheerfulness she was far from feeling. Then she went out into the kitchen and came back with a match. The feeble flicker of it revealed only Aunt Matilda – and no lamp.

"Where's Grandmother?" asked Rosemary, in astonishment. "And what has become of the lamp?"

"She's gone up to her room and she's took the lamp with her," Matilda laughed, hysterically.

Aunt Matilda's Troubles

Rosemary brought in the candle from the kitchen. As it happened, it was the last candle and was nearly gone, but it would burn for an hour or two.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Matilda," said Rosemary, kindly, "if you want to read, or anything – ."

"I don't," she interrupted. "I'd like to sit and talk a spell. I don't know as we need the candle. If she should happen to come back, she'd be mad. She said she'd put away the lamps, and I reckon she'd have took the candle, too, if she'd thought."

"Very well," answered Rosemary, blowing out the candle. "I'm not afraid of the dark." Moreover, it was not the general policy of the household to ruffle Grandmother's temper unnecessarily.

"Rosemary," said Aunt Matilda, a little later; "Ma's a hard woman – she always has been."

"Yes," the girl agreed, listlessly.

"I ain't never said much, but I've had my own troubles. I've tried to bear 'em patiently, but sometimes I ain't been patient – she's always made me feel so ugly."

Rosemary said nothing, but she felt a strange softening of her heart toward Aunt Matilda. "I don't know as you'll believe me," the older woman went on after a pause, "but I never knew nothin' about that money."

Pity for Aunt Matilda

"I know you didn't, Aunt Matilda. It's behind a loose brick in the chimney, in the attic, on the right-hand side. You have to stand on a chair to reach it. If you want any of it, go and help yourself. It's mine, and you're welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't know what I'd want," returned Matilda, gloomily. "I ain't never had nothin', and I've sort of got out of the habit. I did used to think that if it ever come my way, I'd like a white straw hat with red roses on it, but I'm too old for it now."

Tears of pity filled Rosemary's eyes and a lump rose in her throat. Aunt Matilda's deprivations had been as many as her own, and had extended over a much longer period. The way of escape was open for Rosemary, but the older woman must go on, hopelessly, until the end.

"It was sixteen years ago to-night," said Aunt Matilda, dreamily, "that the minister come to call."

"Was it?" asked Rosemary. She did not know what else to say.

"I thought maybe you'd remember it, but I guess you was too little. You was only nine, and you used to go to bed at half-past seven. It was five minutes of eight when he come."

The Minister Asks to Call

"Was it?" asked Rosemary, again.

"Yes. Don't you remember hearin' the door bell ring?"

"No – I must have been asleep."

"Children go to sleep awful quick. It was five minutes of eight when he come."

"Were you expecting him?"

"No, I wasn't. He'd said to me once, on the way out of church after Sunday-school: 'Miss Matilda, I must be comin' over to see you some one of these pleasant evenings, with your kind permission,' Just like that, he says, 'with your kind permission,' I was so flustered I couldn't say much, but I did manage to tell him that Ma and me would be pleased to see him any time, and what do you suppose he said?"

"I don't know," answered Rosemary.

"He said: 'It's you I'm comin' to see – not your Ma,' Just like that – 'It's you!'" Her voice had a new note in it – a strange thrill of tenderness.

"And so," she went on, after a pause, "he come. I was wearin' my brown alpaca that I'd just finished. I'd tried it on after supper to see if it was all right, and it was, so I kept on wearin' it, though Ma was tellin' me all the time to take it off. Her and me had just cleaned the parlour that day. It couldn't have happened better. And when the bell rang, I went to the door myself."

The Greetings

"Were you surprised?"

"My land, yes! I'd thought maybe he'd come, but not without tellin' me when, or askin' for permission, as he'd said. He come in and took off his hat just like he was expected, and he shook hands with Ma and me. He only said 'How do you do Mis' Starr?' to her, but to me, he says: 'I'm glad to see you, Miss Matilda. How well you're looking!' Yes – just like that.

"We went and set down in the parlour. I'd cleaned the lamp that day, too – it was the same lamp Ma's took up-stairs with her now. It was on the centre-table, by the basket of wax-flowers under the glass shade. They was almost new then and none of 'em was broken. They looked awful pretty.

"Ma came in the parlour, too, and she set down between him and me, and she says: 'I've been wantin' to ask you something ever since I heard your last sermon, three weeks ago come Sunday. I ain't been to church since and I can't feel like I ought to go.'

"'I'm sorry,' he says, just as gentle. 'If you have any doubts that I can clear up,' he says, 'about the Scripture – '

"''Tain't the Scripture I'm doubtin',' says Ma, 'it's you.'

"'That isn't as bad,' he says, smilin', but I could see he was scared. You know how Ma is – especially when you ain't used to her.

Discussing Baptism

"'I'd like to ask,' says Ma, 'whether you believe that unbaptised infants is goin' to be saved.'

"'Why, yes,' he says. 'I do,'

"'I suspicioned it,' Ma says. Oh, her voice was awful! 'May I ask you just what grounds you have for believin' such a thing?'

"'I don't know as I could tell you just what grounds I have,' he says, 'but I certainly feel that the God I humbly try to serve is not only just but merciful. And if there's anything on earth purer or more like a flower than a little baby,' he says, 'I don't know what it is, whether it's been baptised or not. I don't think God cares so much about forms and ceremonies as he does about people's hearts,' Them's the very words he said.

"Well," resumed Matilda, after a pause, "Ma was bent on arguin' with him, about that, and baptisin' by sprinklin' or by immersion, and about the lost tribes of Israel, and goodness knows what else. He didn't want to argue, and was all the time tryin' to change the subject, but it was no use. I never got a chance to say a dozen words to him, and finally, when he got up to go, he says: 'I've had a very pleasant evenin', and I'd like to come again sometime soon, if I may,' he says. Just like that.

A Souvenir

"And before I could say a word, Ma had said: 'I dunno as we feel ourselves in need of your particular brand of theology,' she says. 'It's my opinion that you ought to be up before the trustees instead of around callin' on faithful members of the church, sowin' the seeds of doubt in their minds.'"

"His face turned bright red, but he shook hands with Ma, very polite, and with me. I've always thought he squeezed my hand a little. And he says to me, very pleasant: 'Good-night, Miss Matilda,' but that was all, for Ma went to the door with him and banged it shut before he'd got down the steps.

"The day before he went away, I met him in the post-office, accidental, and he says: 'Miss Matilda, I've got somethin' for you if you'll accept it,' and he took me over to one side where there couldn't nobody see us, and he give me his tintype. And he says: 'I hope you'll always remember me, Miss Matilda. You'll promise not to forget me, won't you?'

"And I promised," she resumed, "and I ain't. I've always remembered."

There was a long silence, then Miss Matilda cleared her throat. "Light the candle, Rosemary, will you?"

When the tiny flame appeared, Rosemary saw that the older woman's face was wet with unaccustomed tears. She reached down into the bosom of her dress and drew out a small packet, which she removed carefully from its many wrappings. "See," she said.

It Might Have Been

Rosemary leaned over to look at the pictured face. The heavy beard did not wholly conceal the sensitive, boyish mouth, and even the crude art had faithfully portrayed the dreamy, boyish eyes.

"I want to ask you something," Aunt Matilda said, as she wrapped it up again. "You're going to be married yourself, now, and you'll know about such things. Do you think, if it hadn't been for Ma, it might have been – anything?"

Rosemary put out the light. "I'm sure it would," she said, kindly.

"Oh, Rosemary!" breathed the other, with a quick indrawing of the breath. "Are you truly sure?"

"Truly," said Rosemary, very softly. Then she added, convincingly: "You know Alden's never been to see me but once, and I haven't even a tintype of him, and yet we're going to be married."

"That's so. I hadn't thought of that. I guess you're right." Then she added, generously, "I'm glad you're goin' to be married, Rosemary, and I hope you'll be happy. You've got it comin' to you."

"Thank you," said Rosemary, choking a little on the words. "Thank you, dear Aunt Matilda." Then someway, in the dark, their arms found each other and their lips met.

XXV
A Wedding

By the Sea

The air was crystalline and cool, yet soft, and full of a mysterious, spicy fragrance. Blue skies arched down at the vast curve of the horizon to meet a bluer sea. Snowy gulls swept lazily through the clear blue spaces, their hoarse crying softened into a weird music. Upon the dazzling reaches of white sand, Rosemary was walking with Alden.

He had his arm around her and her face was turned toward his. He was radiant with youth and the joy of living. It was in the spring of his step upon the sand, the strong, muscular lines of his body, and, more than all, in his face. In his eyes were the strange, sweet fires that Rosemary had seen the day she was hidden in the thicket and saw him holding Edith in his arms. But it was all for her now, for Rosemary, and the past was as dead as though it had never been.

As they walked, they talked, saying to each other the thousand dear and foolish things that lovers have said since, back in the Garden, the First Woman looked into the eyes of the First Man and knew that God had made her to be his mate. Suddenly a white cliff loomed up on the beach before them and from its depths came a tremendous knocking, as though some one were endeavouring to escape from a hopeless fastness of stone.

A Stroke

They paused, but the knocking continued, growing louder and louder. Then a hoarse voice called "Rosemary! Rosemary!"

The girl came to herself with a start, rubbing her eyes. Gaunt and grey in the first dim light of morning, Aunt Matilda stood over her, clad in a nondescript dressing-gown.

"Rosemary!" she whispered, shrilly. "Come quick! Ma's had a stroke!"

They ran back to the old lady's room. In the girl's confused remembrance the narrow hallway seemed to be a continuation of the white, sunlit beach, with the blue sky and sea changed to faded wall paper, and the cliff gone.

Grandmother lay upon her bed, helpless, uttering harsh, guttural sounds that seemingly bore no relation to speech. Her eyes blazed at the sight of Rosemary and she tried to sit up in bed, but could not.

"When?" asked Rosemary.

"Just now," Aunt Matilda answered. "I was asleep, and when I woke up I heard her. She must have woke me up. What shall we do?" she continued, helplessly, after a pause.

A Lie

"I don't know," Rosemary whispered, almost stunned by the shock. "I'll dress and go for the doctor."

In an hour she had returned with the physician, who felt the old lady's pulse, and shook his head. In the hall, he interviewed the other two.

"Has she had any shock?" he asked.

For a moment there was no answer, then Matilda answered clearly: "No."

"No," echoed Rosemary.

"No unusual excitement of any sort? Or no bad news?"

"Not that I know of," Matilda replied, calmly.

"Nothing unusual," Rosemary assured him.

"Extraordinary!" he murmured. "I'll be in again this afternoon."

When he had gone, Aunt Matilda turned anxiously to Rosemary. "Do you think we did right? Shouldn't we have told him?"

"I don't know what difference it could make," Rosemary replied, thoughtfully. "I'd hate to have anybody know what she's done. Maybe it's my fault," she went on, sadly. "Perhaps I shouldn't have told her."

"Don't go to blaming yourself, Rosemary. I don't know why you shouldn't have told her. If I'd been you, I'd have told her long ago – or had you just found it out?"

Unable to Speak

"I've known for quite a while. I don't think I'd have said anything, though, if I wasn't going to be married. It didn't seem as if I could be married in brown gingham when father meant for me to have everything I wanted and the money was there."

"Don't worry about it for a minute," said Aunt Matilda, kindly. "You've done just right and you ain't to blame for what's happened. It's her own fault."

Rosemary prepared a breakfast tray and Matilda took it up. "It's better for you to stay away, Rosemary," she said, "for we don't want her to get excited." When she returned, she reported that the old lady had, with evident difficulty, eaten a little oatmeal and choked down a cup of coffee. She was calmer, but unable to speak.

The unaccustomed silence of the house affected them both strangely. Grandmother might be up-stairs and helpless but the powerful impress of her personality still lingered in the rooms below. Her red-and-black plaid shawl, hanging from the back of her chair, conveyed a subtle restraint; the chair itself seemed as though she had just left it and was likely to return to it at any moment.

When the doctor came again, in the afternoon, Matilda went up-stairs with him, while Rosemary waited anxiously in the dining-room. It seemed a long time until they came back and held a brief whispered conference at the front door. When he finally went out, Matilda came into the dining-room, literally tense with excitement.

The Doctor's Word

"He says," she began, sinking into a chair, "that he don't know. I like it in him myself, for a doctor that'll admit he don't know, when he don't, instead of leavin' you to find out by painful experience, is not only scarce, but he's to be trusted when you come across him.

"He says she may get better and she may not – that in a little while she may be up and movin' around and talkin' again about the same as she always did, and again, she may stay just like she is, or get worse. He said he'd do what he could, but he couldn't promise anything – that only time would tell.

"If she stays like this, she's got to be took care of just the same as if she was a baby – fed and turned over and bathed, – and if she gets better she can help herself some. Seems funny, don't it? Yesterday she was rampagin' around and layin' down the law to you, and to-day she can't say yes or no."

"She said yesterday," Rosemary returned, "that she'd never speak to me again as long as she lived. I wonder if it's true!"

"I wonder!" echoed Matilda. "I'd forgotten that."

The Way of Sacrifice

"I hadn't," said the girl, with a grim smile.

"Seems almost as if it might be a judgment on her," Matilda observed, after a pause. "She said she'd never speak to you again and she may never speak to anybody any more. And I've got to take care of her. That's the trouble with judgments – they never hit just the person they were meant to hit. We're all so mixed up that somebody else has to be dragged into it."

Plainly before Rosemary there opened the way of sacrifice and denial. For a moment she hesitated, then offered up her joy on the altar of duty.

"I won't be married, Aunt Matilda," she said, bravely, though her mouth quivered. "I'll stay and help you."

"What?"

"I said I wouldn't be married. I'll – I'll tell Alden I can't. I'll stay and help you."

"You won't. I won't have you speak of such a thing, let alone doing it."

"You can't help it, if I make up my mind."

"Yes, I can. I'll go and see Mrs. Marsh, and him, and the minister, and the doctor, and everybody. I'll tell 'em all everything. You go right on ahead with your gettin' married. I ain't goin' to have your life spoiled the way mine has been. You're young yet and you've got a right to it."

Matilda's Burden

"But – but, Aunt Matilda!"

"Aunt Matilda nothin'! What could you do, anyhow? She don't want you anywheres near her, and the doctor said she mustn't be excited."

"I could do what I've always done – cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing, and I could carry things up-stairs for you."

"Maybe you could, Rosemary, but you ain't goin' to. You've served out your time. Don't you worry about me – I ain't goin' to kill myself."

"I – I wish you'd let me," Rosemary stammered.

"Well, I won't, and that's the end of it. I'll get along someways. The minister used to say that when God gave any of us a burden we couldn't carry by ourselves, He'd always send help, so, if I need help, I'll have it.

"I'll enjoy myself, too, in a way," she went on, after a little. "It's goin' to seem awful peaceful to have the house quiet, with no talkin' nor argument goin' on in it. Sometimes I've thought that if I could get out of the sound of the human voice for a spell I wouldn't feel so ugly. It's wore on me considerable – never bein' alone except nights or when I went up-stairs afternoons and pretended to take a nap. Lots of times I wasn't lyin' down at all – I was just settin' there, with the door locked, thinkin' how nice and quiet it was. Ma'll get a good rest, too, while she ain't talkin', though it ain't for me to say she's needed it."

The Wedding Dawn

"So," she continued, clearing her throat, "you go right on ahead with your marrying."

Rosemary bent and kissed the hollow, withered cheek. "I will," she said. "Oh, dear Aunt Matilda! I wish you hadn't missed it all!"

The older woman's steel blue eyes softened, then filled. "Maybe I've missed it and maybe I ain't," she said, huskily. "Maybe this life is only a discipline to fit us for somethin' better that's comin'. Anyway, if we keep on goin' and doin' the best we can as we go, I believe God will make it right for us later on."

The morning of Rosemary's wedding dawned clear and cool. It was Autumn and yet the sweetness of Summer still lingered in the air. Scarlet banners trailed upon the maples and golden leaves rained from the birches, shimmering as they fell. Amethystine haze lay upon the valley, shot through with silver gleams from the river that murmured toward the sea with the sound of far waters asleep.

Purple lights laid enchantment upon the distant hills, where the Tapestry-Maker had stored her threads – great skeins of crimson and golden green, russet and flaming orange, to be woven into the warp and woof of September by some magic of starlight and dawn. Lost rainbows and forgotten sunsets had mysteriously come back, to lie for a moment upon hill or river, and then to disappear.

Making Ready

Noon had been chosen for the ceremony, in the little church at the foot of the Hill of the Muses, for, as Alden had said, with a laugh, "even though it was private, it might as well be fashionable." Aunt Matilda was up at dawn, putting new lace into the neck and sleeves of her best brown alpaca, as tremulous and anxious as though she herself were to be the bride.

Rosemary had packed her few belongings the day before, in the little old-fashioned trunk that had been her mother's. As she dressed, Aunt Matilda sat on the bed, pathetically eager to help in some way, though it might be only to pin up a stray lock or tie a shoe.

Rosemary shook out the dull ashen masses of her hair with a sigh. As she put it up, Alden's big betrothal diamond blazed star-like upon her rough, red hand. She contemplated it ruefully – it seemed so out of place – then brightened at the memory of the promise Mrs. Marsh had made so long ago.

"She'll teach me how to take care of my hands," said Rosemary, half to herself, "so they'll look like hers."

"She?" repeated Aunt Matilda. "Who?"

Matilda's Compensation

"Mrs. Marsh – mother."

"Yes, I guess she will. She'll teach you a lot of things Ma and me have never heard tell of. Maybe you'd just as soon ask her, Rosemary, why she never returned my call?"

"I will, surely. I don't think she meant anything by it, Aunt Matilda. She might have been busy and forgotten about it. Anyhow, you'll have to come to see me now."

"Yes, I will. I've thought I'd put the minister's tintype up on the mantel now, as long as Ma ain't likely to see it. It'll be company for me. And I reckon I'll get me a cat. I always wanted one and Ma would never let me have it. I can keep it down-stairs and she may never know about it, but even if she hears it meowing, or me talkin' to it, she can't say nothin' about it.

"My, ain't it beautiful!" she continued, as Rosemary slipped her white gown over her head. "Please let me hook it up, Rosemary – this is as near as I'll ever come to a wedding. Are you going in to see her before you go?"

Rosemary hesitated. "Yes," she sighed, "I'll go. I think I ought to."

"Don't if you don't want to. I wouldn't spoil my wedding-day by doing anything I didn't like to do."

Grandmother Relaxes

"I want to," murmured Rosemary. "I wouldn't feel right not to."

So, when she was ready, she went into the old lady's room. Happiness made her almost lovely as she stood there in her simple white gown and big plumed hat, drawing long white kid gloves over her red hands.

"Grandmother," she said, tremulously, "I'm going up to the church now, to be married to Alden Marsh. Before I go, I want to tell you I'm sorry if I've ever done anything I shouldn't do, and ask you to forgive me for any unhappiness I may ever have caused you. I haven't meant to do it, and I – I believe you've meant to be good to me. I hope you're glad I'm going to be happy now."

The stern old face relaxed, ever so little, the sharp eyes softened with mist, and by tremendous effort, Grandmother put out a withered, wavering hand. Rosemary bent over the bed, lifted her in her strong young arms, and kissed her twice, then hurried away.

Alden met them as they were half-way to the church, and, utterly regardless of two or three interested children who happened to be passing, shook hands with Aunt Matilda, then bent to kiss the flushed and happy face under the big plumed hat.

"What magnificence!" he said. "I'm unworthy of so much splendour, I'm afraid. How on earth did you manage it?"