nna Belle," she commanded, "and put on your blue
muslin."

Anna Belle looked surprised. "Is any company coming?" she asked.

"What if there isn't?" replied her mother. "Don't you suppose I like to
see you lookin' nice?" She walked out to the kitchen and began preparing
the evening meal. All the afternoon a strange nervousness had been
growing on her. She was beginning to understand the momentousness of her
morning interview with Mrs. Martin, and she saw herself as one who has
risked all on a single throw. She had laid bare to Henry's mother the
sacred desires of her own mother-heart and the yet more sacred desires
of her daughter's maiden-heart. What if this humiliation should be to no
purpose? Or, worse still, suppose she had misinterpreted the fragments
of conversation that she had overheard. Suppose Henry's visits were
after all only friendly ones? Her hands trembled, and her whole body was
in a hot flush of fear and apprehension. She glanced at the kitchen
clock.

"It won't be long till I know," she murmured. "If Henry's mother falls
in with my plans, Henry'll come to see Anna Belle to-night."

She tried to reassure herself by recalling all that gentle Mrs. Martin
had said, but as the moments passed, her apprehension grew, and when she
tried to eat, the food almost choked her.

As soon as the dishes were washed, Anna Belle stole out to the front
porch. She did not expect her lover to-night, but at least she could sit
in the gathering dusk, thinking of Henry and of that wonderful wedding
gown. Meanwhile Mrs. Williams was up-stairs, leaning from her bedroom
window, listening for Henry's step and peering anxiously in the
direction from which Henry must come. How slow the minutes were! The
kitchen clock struck seven. Half-past seven was Henry's usual hour, but
surely to-night he would come earlier. Ten minutes passed. She heard
footsteps up the street, and her heart began to beat like a girl's.
Nearer the footsteps sounded. Could that quick, firm tread be Henry's?
Henry was usually rather slow of speech and movement. A hand was on the
latch of the gate. She heard Anna Belle's exclamation of surprise and
pleasure, then Henry's laugh and Henry's voice.

In the love affairs of her daughter, every mother finds a resurrection
of her own youthful romance, no matter how long it may have been buried;
and as the young man's tones, low, earnest and charged with a lover's
joy, rose on the summer air, Anna Belle's mother turn