if she knew that she had overheard what Phil had said about
that bit of something blue. She went back to her chair and her book by
the window after Lloyd left, but the book lay unopened in her lap. She
had many things to think of while she slowly turned the bottle between
herself and the light and watched its shifting colors. Several times a
black bead appeared among the others.

"I'd have had to use black beads more than once," she reflected, "if _I_
had been making a rosary, for there's the day I was so rude to Girlie
Dinsmore, and the awful time when I got so interested that I
eavesdropped."

* * * * *

The wedding was all that Mrs. Sherman had planned, everything falling
into place as beautifully and naturally as the unfolding of a flower.
The assembled guests seated in the great bower of roses heard a low,
soft trembling of harp-strings deepen into chords. Then to this
accompaniment two violins began the wedding-march, and the great gate of
roses swung wide. As Stuart and his best man entered from a side door
and took their places at the altar in front of the old minister, the
rest of the bridal party came down the stairs: Betty and Miles Bradford
first, Joyce and Rob, then the maid of honor walking alone with her
armful of roses. After her came the bride with her hand on her father's
arm.

Just at that instant some one outside drew back the shutters in the
bay-window, and a flood of late afternoon sunshine streamed across the
room, the last golden rays of the perfect June day making a path of
light from the gate of roses to the white altar. It shone full across
Eugenia's face, down on the long-trained shimmering satin, the little
gleaming slippers, the filmy veil that enveloped her, the pearls that
glimmered white on her white throat.

Eliot, standing in a corner, nervously watching every movement with
twitching lips, relaxed into a smile. "It's a good omen!" she said, half
under her breath, then gave a startled glance around to see if any one
had heard her speak at such an improper time.

The music grew softer now, so faint and low it seemed the mere shadow of
sound. Above the rare sweetness of that undertone of harp and violins
rose the words of the ceremony: "_I, Stuart, take thee, Eugenia, to be
my wedded wife_."

Mary, standing at her post by the rose gate, felt a queer little chill
creep over her. It was so solemn, so very much more solemn than she had
imagined it woul