little
rivers ran down the window-panes, and the porches had to be abandoned.
But nobody lamented the fact that they were driven indoors. Rob and
Joyce began a game of chess in the library. Lloyd and Phil turned over
the music in the cabinet until they found a pile of duets which they
both knew, and began to try them, first to the accompaniment of the
piano, then the harp.

Mary, sitting in the hall where she could see both the chess-players and
the singers, waited in a state of bliss to be summoned to the
sewing-room. Only that morning it had been discovered that there was
enough pink chiffon left, after the bridesmaids' gowns were completed,
to make her a dress, and the seamstress was at work upon it now. So it
was a gay, rose-colored world to Mary this morning, despite the leaden
skies and pouring rain outside. Not only was she to have a dress, the
material for which had actually been brought from Paris, but she was to
have little pink satin slippers like the bridesmaids, and she was to
have a proud place in the wedding itself. When the bridal party came
down the stairs, it was to be her privilege to swing wide the gate of
roses for them to pass through.

Joyce had designed the gate. It was to be a double one, swung in the
arch between the hall and the drawing-room, and it would take hundreds
of roses to make it, the florist said.

In Mary's opinion the office of gate-opener was more to be desired than
that of bridesmaid. As she sat listening to the music, curled up in a
big hall chair like a contented kitten, she decided that there was
nobody in all the world with whom she would change places. There had
been times when she would have exchanged gladly with Joyce, thinking of
the artist career ahead of her, or with Betty, who was sure to be a
famous author some day, or with Lloyd, who seemed to have everything
that heart could wish, or with Eugenia with all her lovely presents and
trousseau and the new home on the Hudson waiting for her. But just now
she was so happy that she wouldn't even have stepped into a fairy-tale.

Presently, through the dripping window-panes, she saw Alec plodding up
the avenue under an umbrella, his pockets bulging with mail packages,
papers, and letters. Betty, at her window up-stairs, saw him also, and
came running down the steps, followed by Eugenia. The old Colonel,
hearing the call, "The mail's here," opened the door of his den, and
joined the group in the hall where Betty proceeded