the
fairy-tales, some of them. There was 'feasting and merrymaking for
seventy days and seventy nights.' This one is going by so fast that it
will soon be train-time. I don't suppose _they_ care," she added, with a
nod toward the bride, "for they're going to spend their honeymoon in a
Gold of Ophir rose-garden, where there are goldfish in the fountains,
and real orange-blossoms. It's out in California, at Mister Stuart's
grandfather's. Elsie, his sister, couldn't come, so they're going out to
see her, and take her a piece of every kind of cake we have to-night,
and a sample of every kind of bonbon. Don't you wonder who'll get the
charms in the bride's cake? That's the only reason I am glad the clock
is going so fast. It will soon be time to cut the cake, and I'm wild to
see who gets the things in it."

The last glow of the sunset was still tinting the sky with a tender pink
when they were summoned to the dining-room, but indoors it had grown so
dim that a hundred rose-colored candles had been lighted. Again the
music of harp and violins floated through the rose-scented rooms. As
Mary glanced around at the festive scene, the tables gleaming with
silver and cut glass, the beautiful costumes, the smiling faces, a line
from her old school reader kept running through her mind: "_And all went
merry as a marriage-bell! And all went merry as a marriage-bell!_"

It repeated itself over and over, through all the gay murmur of voices
as the supper went on, through the flowery speech of the old Colonel
when he stood to propose a toast, through the happy tinkle of laughter
when Stuart responded, through the thrilling moment when at last the
bride rose to cut the mammoth cake. In her nervous excitement, Mary
actually began to chant the line aloud, as the first slice was lifted
from the great silver salver: "All went merry--" Then she clapped her
hand over her mouth, but nobody had noticed, for Allison had drawn the
wedding-ring, and a chorus of laughing congratulations was drowning out
every other sound.

As the cake passed on from guest to guest, Betty cried out that she had
found the thimble. Then Lloyd held up the crystal charm, the one the
bride had said was doubly lucky, because it held imbedded in its centre
a four-leaved clover. Nearly every slice had been crumbled as soon as it
was taken, in search of a hidden token, but Mary, who had not dared to
hope that she might draw one, began leisurely eating her share. Suddenly
he