lowly and absorbedly. The task took some time.
From it he passed to a close contemplation of a pink slippered foot
which also proved to be Sonya's, and then to a careful study of a black
pump and black silk sock that proved to be Lawwie's. Lawwie was smiling
down at Samuel, too, and Wobert was standing beside Babs, saying
something in a voice that wabbled.

Samuel sighed again. Perhaps by and by Lawwie would take him out for a
real walk in the snow. All this pink-and-white display around him might
be pretty, but there was nothing in it for a small boy. He gazed
appealingly at Sonya, who promptly hoisted him to his fat legs. The man
at the railing had stopped talking to Babs and the walk was resumed,
this time toward the door. Again that especially precious part of the
white stuff was in Samuel's keeping.

The sounds that now filled the air were more wonderful than ever. They
excited Samuel. His fat arms waved, and the light train waved with them.
A compelling hand, Sonya's, quieted them and it. There was absolutely
nothing a little boy could do in this queer walk. Gloomily but sedately
the Infant Samuel continued his promenade.

"Here he is," murmured Mrs. Lytton to her friend. "You can see him now,
can't you?"

Mrs. Renway gurgled happily. She could.

"Rodney Bangs, the playwright who collaborated with Laurie, is sitting
in the front pew," continued her informant, "and the fat little bald man
next to him is Jacob Epstein, the New York manager who put on their
play."

At the same moment Epstein was whispering to his companion, as the two
watched Barbara and her husband start down the aisle in the first little
journey of their married life.

"Say, Bangs, if ve could put this vedding into a play, just like they
done it here, ve could vake up Broadvay a little--ain't it?"

Bangs nodded, vaguely. His brown eyes were alternately on the bride and
on his chum and partner, her brother. He was conscious of an odd
depression, of an emotion, new and poignant, that made him understand
the tears of Barbara's women friends. Under the influence of this, he
spoke oracularly:

"Weddings are beastly depressing things. What the public wants to see is
something cheerful!"

Epstein nodded in his turn. His thoughts, too, were busy. Like many of
those around him, he was mentally reducing the spectacle he was watching
to terms that he could understand. A wedding conducted on this scale, he
estimated, probably represented a total c