r teeth met on something hard and flat, and glancing down, she saw the
edge of a coin protruding from the scrap of cake she held.

"Oh, it's the shilling!" she exclaimed, in such open-mouthed
astonishment that every one laughed, and for the next few moments she
was the centre of the congratulations. Eugenia took a narrow white
ribbon from one of the dream-cake boxes, and passed it through the hole
in the shilling, so that she could hang it around her neck.

"Destined to great wealth!" said Rob, with mock solemnity. "I always did
think I'd like to marry an heiress. I'll wait for you, Mary."

"No," interrupted Phil, laughing, "fate has decreed that I should be the
lucky man. Don't you see that it is Philip's head with Mary's on that
shilling?"

"Whew!" teased Kitty. "Two proposals in one evening, Mary. See what the
charm has done for you already!"

Mary knew that they were joking, but she turned the color of her dress,
and sat twiddling the coin between her thumb and finger, too embarrassed
to look up. They sat so long at the table that it was almost train-time
when Eugenia went up-stairs to put on her travelling-dress. She made a
pretty picture, pausing midway up the stairs in her bridal array, the
veil thrown back, and her happy face looking down on the girls gathered
below. Leaning far over the banister with the bridal bouquet in her
hands, she called:

"Now look, ye pretty maidens, standing all a-row,
The one who catches this, the next bouquet shall throw."

There was a laughing scramble and a dozen hands were outstretched to
receive it. "Oh, Joyce caught it! Joyce caught it!" cried Mary, dancing
up and down on the tips of her toes, and clapping her hands over her
mouth to stifle the squeal of delight that had almost escaped. "Now,
some day I can be maid of honor."

"So that's why you are so happy over your sister's good fortune, is it?"
asked Phil, bent on teasing her every time opportunity offered.

"No," was the indignant answer. "That is some of the reason, but I'm
gladdest because she didn't get left out of everything. She didn't get
one of the cake charms, so I hoped she would catch the bouquet."

When the carriage drove away at last, a row of shiny black faces was
lined up each side of the avenue. All the Gibbs children were there, and
Aunt Cindy's other grandchildren, with their hands full of rice.

"Speed 'em well, chillun!" called old Cindy, waving her apron. The rice
fell in