kept her seat next the aisle; presently an usher
brought up a lady who sat down beside her, and then for a moment or two
seemed to sink and rise, as if on the springs of an intense excitement.

It was Miss Cotton, who, while this process of quiescing lasted,
appeared not to know Mrs. Brinkley. When she became aware of her, all
was lost again. "Mrs. Brinkley!" she cried, as well as one can cry in
whisper. "Is it possible?"

"I have my doubts," Mrs. Brinkley whispered back. "But we'll suppose the
case."

"Oh, it's all too good to be true! How I envy you being the means of
bringing them together, Mrs. Brinkley!"

"Means?"

"Yes--they owe it all to you; you needn't try to deny it; he's told
every one!"

"I was sure she hadn't," said Mrs. Brinkley, remembering how Alice had
marked an increasing ignorance of any part she might have had in the
affair from the first moment of her reconciliation with Dan; she had the
effect of feeling that she had sacrificed enough to Mrs. Brinkley; and
Mrs. Brinkley had been restored to all the original strength of her
conviction that she was a solemn little unconscious egotist, and Dan was
as unselfish and good as he was unequal to her exactions.

"Oh no?" said Miss Cotton. "She couldn't!" implying that Alice would be
too delicate to speak of it.

"Do you see any of his family here?" asked Mrs. Brinkley.

"Yes; over there--up front." Miss Cotton motioned, with her eyes toward
a pew in which Mrs. Brinkley distinguished an elderly gentleman's
down-misted bald head and the back of a young lady's bonnet. "His father
and sister; the other's a bridemaid; mother bed-ridden and couldn't
come."

"They might have brought her in an-arm-chair," suggested Mrs. Brinkley
ironically, "on such an occasion. But perhaps they don't take much
interest in such a patched-up affair."

"Oh yes, they do!" exclaimed Miss Cotton. "They idolise Alice."

"And Mrs. Pasmer and Mister, too?"

"I don't suppose that so much matters."

"They know how to acquiesce, I've no doubt."

"Oh yes! You've heard? The young people are going abroad first with her
family for a year, and then they come back to live with his--where the
Works are."

"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Brinkley.

"Why, Mrs. Brinkley, do you still feel that way?" asked Miss Cotton,
with a certain distress. "It seems to me that if ever two young people
had the promise of happiness, they have. Just see what their love has
done for them already!"

"And