inning to recover from it now," she remarked
plaintively, "and there you sit, Katy, looking as fresh as a rose; not
tired a bit, and never seeming to have anything on your mind. I can't
think how you do it. I never was at a wedding before where everybody was
not perfectly worn out."

"You never were at such a simple wedding before," explained Katy. "I'm not
ambitious, you see. I want to keep things pretty much as they are every
day, only with a little more of everything because of there being more
people to provide for. If I were attempting to make it a beautiful,
picturesque wedding, we should get as tired as anybody, I have no doubt."

Katy's gifts were numerous enough to satisfy even Clover, and comprised
all manner of things, from a silver tray which came, with a rather stiff
note, from Mrs. Page and Lilly, to Mary's new flour-scoop, Debby's sifter,
and a bottle of home-made hair tonic from an old woman in the "County
Home." Each of the brothers and sisters had made her something, Katy
having expressed a preference for presents of home manufacture. Mrs. Ashe
gave her a beautiful sapphire ring, and Cecy Hall--as they still called
her inadvertently half the time--an elaborate sofa-pillow embroidered by
herself. Katy liked all her gifts, both large and small, both for what
they were and for what they meant, and took a good healthy, hearty
satisfaction in the fact that so many people cared for her, and had worked
to give her a pleasure.

Cousin Helen was the first guest to arrive, five days before the wedding.
When Dr. Carr, who had gone to Buffalo to meet and escort her down, lifted
her from the carriage and carried her indoors, all of them could easily
have fancied that it was the first visit happening over again, for she
looked exactly as she did then, and scarcely a day older. She happened to
have on a soft gray travelling dress too, much like that which she wore on
the previous occasion, which made the illusion more complete.

But there was no illusion to Cousin Helen herself. Everything to her
seemed changed and quite different. The ten years which had passed so
lightly over her head had made a vast alteration in the cousins whom she
remembered as children. The older ones were grown up, the younger ones in
a fair way to be so; even Phil, who had been in white frocks with curls
falling over his shoulders at the time of her former visit to Burnet, was
now fifteen and as tall as his father. He was very slight in bu