oming day, and then the
sullen-pointed cloud sank rapidly below Paradise Ridge, over which it
had risen, as if reconnoitering. Positively shuddering, I knelt against
the window seat and watched the day come with a hitherto unknown terror.
Then as I watched the dawn begin to drive away the sullen clouds a rich
voice began to sing out beyond the old poplars as a window of the gray
chapel was thrown open:

"Arise, my soul, arise,
Shake off thy guilty fears;
... ... ... ...
Before the throne my Surety stands
My name is written on His hands."

The calmness that came into my frightened heart was like the peace of a
deep sleep, and with its strength I faced the day that was to be that of
my humiliation and which was to be the crest of the wave of the high
tide of Goodloets.

CHAPTER XVI

THE JEWEL IN THE MATRIX

When I awoke from a few hours of deep and exhausted sleep I found my
room fast filling with the strenuosities of the day. In fact, I opened
them upon Harriet Henderson, up, dressed and briskly doing. She had a
large pasteboard box with her and the minute I brushed repose from my
eyes she opened it and held up for my inspection a very short tulle
garment besprinkled with tiny silk rosebuds, along with a bonnet and
other wee but distinctly feminine paraphernalia to match. A basket
adorned with a huge bow of tulle came from another box and I was forced
to voice my admiration with the greatest vigor.

"How I'll ever keep from eating Sue up before she gets to the altar, I
can't see," said Harriet, as she held the wee frock for a second against
her breast. It hurts me to the quick of my own breast to see Harriet's
eyes when she broods over Sue. I don't see how she is going to live
life always as hungry as she is now.

"I suppose I might just as well wear my tennis things, because the
guests will be already as completely enraptured as is humanly possible
before my entry upon the scene of action of my own wedding," I said, as
I sat up and took the small bonnet in my own hand. "It is too bad that
Jessie and Letitia should worry themselves over my own wedding frock, if
Susan is--" I was just saying when Nell arrived beside my bed with the
Suckling in the very act of obtaining her early luncheon from the
maternal fount. The nurse has always had to follow Nell about with her
successive hungry offspring.

"Girls, I really don't know what to do, but young Charlotte has given
every singl