interest in all that pertains to a wedding, since further
protest seemed futile. "I will write to Aunt Theodosia."

"Thank you," said Dosia dutifully.

A hamper of fruit came for her at luncheon, almost unimaginably
beautiful in its arrangement of white hothouse grapes and peaches and
strawberries as large as the peaches; and the contents of a box of
flowers filled every available vase and jug and bowl in the house, as
Dosia arranged them, with the help of Zaidee and Redge--the former
winningly helpful, and the latter elfishly agile, his bare knees
nut-brown from the sun of the springtime, jumping on her back whenever
she stooped over, to be seized in her arms and hugged when she
recovered herself. Flowers and children, children and flowers! Nothing
could be sweeter than these.

In the afternoon, in a renewed capacity for social duties, she put on
her hat with the roses and went to make a call, long deferred and
hitherto impossible of accomplishment, on a certain Mrs. Wayne, a
bride of a few months, who, as Alice Lee, had been one of the girls of
her outer circle. Dosia did not mean to announce her engagement, but
she felt that Alice Wayne's state of mind would be more sympathetic,
even if unconsciously so, than Lois'.

As she walked along now, she thought of George with a deeply grateful
affection. How good he was to her! He had been unexpectedly nice when
he had asked her to marry him; the very force of his feeling had given
him an unusual dignity. His voice had broken almost with a groan on
the words:

"I have never known any one with such a beautiful nature as yours,
Miss Dosia! I just worship you! I only want to live to make you
happy."

He did not himself care for motoring--being, truth to tell, afraid of
it; but she was to choose a car next week. She had told him about her
father and her mother and the children. She was to have the latter
come up to stay with her after she was married--do anything for them
that she would. In imagination now she was taking them through all the
shops in town, buying them toy horses and soldiers and balls, and
dressing them in darling little light-blue sailor-suits. She could
hardly wait for the time to come! She thought with a little awe that
she hadn't known that Mr. Sutton was as well off as he seemed to be.
And the way he had spoken of Lawson--Ah, Lawson! That name tugged at
her heart. This suddenly became one of those anguished moments when
she yearned over him as over