o the garden gate and raced up to the door.

"Yes'm," she said meekly. "You want me, Miss C'rona?"

"Take this box down to Miss Juliet Gordon, and ask that it be given to
her at once," said Miss Corona, "Don't loiter, Charlotta. Don't stop
to pick gum in the grove, or eat sours in the dike, or poke sticks
through the bridge, or--"

But Charlotta had gone.

* * * * *

Down in the valley, the other Gordon house was in a hum of excitement.
Upstairs Juliet had gone to her invalid mother's room to show herself
in her wedding dress to the pale little lady lying on the sofa. She
was a tall, stately young girl with the dark grey Gordon eyes and the
pure creaminess of colouring, flawless as a lily petal. Her face was a
very sweet one, and the simple white dress she wore became her dainty,
flowerlike beauty as nothing elaborate could have done.

"I'm not going to put on my veil until the last moment," she said
laughingly. "I would feel married right away if I did. And oh, Mother
dear, isn't it too bad? My roses haven't come. Father is back from the
station, and they were not there. I am so disappointed. Romney
ordered pure white roses because I said a Gordon bride must carry
nothing else. Come in"--as a knock sounded at the door.

Laura Burton, Juliet's cousin and bridesmaid, entered with a box.

"Juliet dear, the funniest little red-headed girl with the most
enormous freckles has just brought this for you. I haven't an idea
where she came from; she looked like a messenger from pixy-land."

Juliet opened the box and gave a cry.

"Oh, Mother, look--look! What perfect roses! Who could have sent them?
Oh, here's a note from--from--why, Mother, it's from Cousin Corona."

"My dear child," ran the letter in Miss Corona's fine,
old-fashioned script. "I am sending you the Gordon bride roses.
The rose-tree has bloomed for the first time in twenty years, my
dear, and it must surely be in honour of your wedding day. I
hope you will wear them for, although I have never known you, I
love you very much. I was once a dear friend of your father's.
Tell him to let you wear the roses I send for old times' sake. I
wish you every happiness, my dear.

"Your affectionate cousin,
"Corona Gordon."

"Oh, how sweet and lovely of her!" said Juliet gently, as she laid the
letter down. "And to think she w