or into full relief, and, touching Lois's head, as she
sat in the shadow at the foot of the steps, with a faint aureole, fell in
a broad bright square on the lawn in front of the house. They had begun
to speak again of the wedding, when the click of the gate latch and the
swinging glimmer of a lantern through the lilacs and syringas warned them
that some one was coming, and in another moment the Misses Woodhouse
and their nephew stepped across the square of light.

Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were quite unconscious that they gave the
impression of carrying Gifford about with them, rather than of being
supported by him, for each little lady had passed a determined arm
through one of his, and instead of letting her small hand, incased in its
black silk mitt, rest upon his sleeve, pressed it firmly to her breast.

Ashurst was a place where friendships grew in simplicity as well as
strength with the years, and because these three people had been most of
the morning at the rectory, arranging flowers, or moving furniture about,
or helping with some dainty cooking, and then had gone to the church at
noon for the wedding, they saw no reason why they should not come again
in the evening. So the sisters had put on their second-best black silks,
and, summoning Gifford, had walked through the twilight to the rectory.
Miss Deborah Woodhouse had a genius for economy, which gave her great
pleasure and involved but slight extra expense to the household, and she
would have felt it a shocking extravagance to have kept on the dress she
had worn to the wedding. Miss Ruth, who was an artist, the sisters said,
and fond of pretty things, reluctantly followed her example.

They sat down now on the rectory porch, and began to talk, in their
eager, delicate little voices, of the day's doings. They scarcely noticed
that their nephew and Lois had gone into the fragrant dusk of the garden.
It did not interest them that the young people should wish to see, as
Gifford had said, how the sunset light lingered behind the hills; and
when they had exhausted the subject of the wedding, Miss Ruth was anxious
to ask the rector about his greenhouse and the relative value of leaf
mould and bone dressing, so they gave no thought to the two who still
delayed among the flowers.

This was not surprising. Gifford and Lois had known each other all their
lives. They had quarreled and made up with kisses, and later on had
quarreled and made up without the kisses, but