d groomsman and best man and usher and maid of honor at
a wedding, in less than an hour! Off with you! Drive straight and use
the whip on Dolly!"

When he re-entered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, Rose
put the various good things on the table and he almost tremblingly took
his seat, fearing that contact with the solid wood might wake him from
this entrancing vision.

"I'd like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you," he
said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with happiness to
be of any use."

"It's my turn to wait upon you, and I--Oh! how I love to have you
dazed," Rose answered. "I'll be at the table presently myself; but we
have been housekeeping only three minutes, and we have nothing but the
tin coffee-pot this morning, so I'll pour the coffee from the stove."

She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it to Stephen's side.
As she set it down and was turning, she caught his look,--a look so full
of longing that no loving woman, however busy, could have resisted it;
then she stooped and kissed him fondly, fervently.

Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee, rested
his head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, like that
of a tired child. He had waited for it ten years, and at last the dream
room had come true.

THE OLD PEABODY PEW

A Christmas Romance of a Country Church

DEDICATION

To a certain handful of dear New England women of names unknown to the
world, dwelling in a certain quiet village, alike unknown:--

We have worked together to make our little corner of the great universe
a pleasanter place in which to live, and so we know, not only one
another's names, but something of one another's joys and sorrows, cares
and burdens, economies, hopes, and anxieties.

We all remember the dusty uphill road that leads to the green church
common. We remember the white spire pointing upward against a background
of blue sky and feathery elms. We remember the sound of the bell
that falls on the Sabbath morning stillness, calling us across the
daisy-sprinkled meadows of June, the golden hayfields of July, or the
dazzling whiteness and deep snowdrifts of December days. The little
cabinet-organ that plays the Doxology, the hymn-books from which we sing
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow," the sweet freshness of the
old meeting-house, within and without,--how we have toiled to secure and
preserve these humble m