her sisters' mental horizons.

She and Richard went to the minister's house early one Sabbath
morning, and were married. Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on
Richard's arm. They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on the
opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia's old pew. It seemed
to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, as of
old, if she looked across. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, and
never glanced at Richard by her side. She held her white-bonneted
head up like some gentle flower which had sprung back to itself after
a hard wind. She had a new white bridal bonnet, as Richard had
wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and ribbons, and she wore a
long white-worked veil over her face. The wrought net-work, as
delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines and fixed tints, and
gave to her face an illusion of girlhood. She wore the two curls over
her cheeks. Richard had asked her why she didn't curl her hair as she
used to do.

All the people saw Sylvia's white bonnet; it seemed to turn their
eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the light in
the meeting-house. But there were a few women who eyed more sharply
Sylvia's wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the very ones which
poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own bridal. Sylvia was
just about her niece's height; the gown had needed a little taking in
to fit her thinner form, and that was all.

Charlotte's mother had brought them over to Sylvia's one night, all
nicely folded in white linen towels.

"Charlotte wants you to have 'em; she says she won't ever need 'em,
poor child!" she said, in response to Sylvia's remonstrances. Mrs.
Barnard's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. It had apparently
been harder for her to give up the poor slighted wedding-clothes than
for her daughter. Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them
out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had
laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint
elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came
in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if
she herself wore it.

"Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them,"
she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments
of some one who was dead.

"Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear 'em
yourself," said her mother.

"I never shall," Charl