Esther kissed her with new tenderness. "I am so glad
you have it safely back," she whispered. "You need never be afraid of
losing it again."

Aunt Amy found it hard to make the pies that morning. She was enveloped
in a deep sadness, a sadness which in some misunderstood way seemed
inseparable from the idea of that lost friend of hers, the girl-bride
whose marriage hour had never struck. It seemed to Aunt Amy that the
girl had been waiting a very long time and was tired. Even if the world
were round, it was a very big world and eleven o'clock on Tuesday took a
wearisome time to travel around it. She could not understand why she
should feel so terribly sorry for the waiting girl, but she did. A hot
tear fell into the pie-crust. That would never do! The pie-maker
furtively dried her eyes and came back to the consideration of more
immediate problems.

It may seem strange that no one noticed the morbid state of Aunt Amy at
this time. But it would have been more strange if any one had noticed
it. Of outward signs there were practically none. Even the silent
hand-wringing had ceased. She ceased to rebuke Jane for stepping upon
the third stair; she ceased to talk of the peculiarities inherent in
sprigged china. She was more and more careful not to mention "Them,"
and, as always, her housekeeping was a wonder and a delight.

She even offered to make Mary's wedding-cake. An offer which Mary
received graciously. No one could make fruit cake like Aunt Amy and if
it proved too big for the house oven the baker could bake it in his.
Jane was delighted. She told Bubble that it was to be a "hugeous" cake,
the like of which was never seen in Coombe and she defied Ann to produce
any relative or ancestor whatever whose wedding-cake had even faintly
approached such dimensions. Ann retorted that big wedding-cakes were
vulgar and that her Aunt Sykes did not think it proper for a widow woman
to have a wedding-cake at all.

The making of the cake was a great mental help to Aunt Amy. It seemed to
ease her mind and aid her to think clearly. She thought of many things
as she prepared the materials, made most clever plans. That all the
plans had to do with the preventing of the marriage and the final
circumventing of "Them" goes without saying. There was one especially
good plan which came to her while she stoned the raisins. Still another,
while the currants were being looked over, and a third, more brilliant
than either, while she chopped the