talking in low tones, looking furtively now and then toward
the house, and withdrawing into the covert of the bushes by the walk. But
Kate dared not linger long. She could see her father's profile by the
candle light in the dining room. She did not wish to receive further
rebuke, and so in a very few minutes the two parted and Kate ran up the
box-edged path, beginning to hum a sweet old love song in a gay light
voice, as she tripped by the dining-room windows, and thus announced her
arrival. She guessed that Marcia would have gone straight to her room and
told nothing. Kate intended to be fully surprised. She paused in the hall
to hang up the light shawl she had worn, calling good-night to her
stepmother and saying she was very tired and was going straight to bed to
be ready for to-morrow. Then she ran lightly across the hall to the
stairs.

She knew they would call her back, and that they would all come into the
hall with David to see the effect of his surprise upon her. She had
planned to a nicety just which stair she could reach before they got
there, and where she would pause and turn and poise, and what pose she
would take with her round white arm stretched to the handrail, the sleeve
turned carelessly back. She had ready her countenances, a sleepy
indifference, then a pleased surprise, and a climax of delight. She
carried it all out, this little bit of impromptu acting, as well as though
she had rehearsed it for a month.

They called her, and she turned deliberately, one dainty, slippered foot,
with its crossed black ribbons about the slender ankle, just leaving the
stair below, and showing the arch of the aristocratic instep. Her gown was
blue and she held it back just enough for the stiff white frill of her
petticoat to peep below. Well she read the admiration in the eyes below
her. Admiration was Kate's life: she thrived upon it. She could not do
without it.

David stood still, his love in his eyes, looking upon the vision of his
bride, and his heart swelled within him that so great a treasure should be
his. Then straightway they all forgot to question where she had been or to
rebuke her that she had been at all. She had known they would. She ever
possessed the power to make others forget her wrong doings when it was
worth her while to try.

The next morning things were astir even earlier than usual. There was the
sound of the beating of eggs, the stirring of cakes, the clatter of pots
and pans from the wid