down to the van, and was impatient to be
where she could superintend--there was a very important small trunk, full
of underclothes, which she was sure they were overlooking. Arthur was
gloomily abstracted, was in fierce combat with the bitter and melancholy
thoughts which arose from the contrast he could not but make--this simple
wedding, with Dory Hargrave as her groom, when in other circumstances
there would have been such pomp and grandeur. He and Mary the cook and
Ellen the upstairs girl and old Miss Skeffington, generalissimo of the
Hargrave household, were the only persons present keenly conscious that
there was in progress a wedding, a supposedly irrevocable union of a man
and woman for life and for death and for posterity. Even old Dr. Hargrave
was thinking of what Dory was to do on the other side, was mentally
going over the elaborate scheme for his son's guidance which he had drawn
up and committed to paper. Judge Torrey, the only outsider, was putting
into form the speech he intended to make at the wedding breakfast.

But there was no wedding breakfast--at least, none for bride and groom.
The instant the ceremony was over, Mary the cook whispered to Mrs.
Ranger: "Mike says they've just got time to miss the train."

"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Ranger. And she darted out to halt the van
and count the trunks. Then she rushed in and was at Adelaide's arm.
"Hurry, child!" she exclaimed. "Here is my present for you."

And she thrust into her hand a small black leather case, the cover of a
letter of credit. Seeing that Del was too dazed to realize what was going
on, she snatched it away and put it into the traveling case which Mary
was carrying. Amid much shaking hands and kissing and nervous crying,
amid flooding commonplaces and hysterical repetitions of "Good-by! Good
luck!" the young people were got off. There was no time for Mary to bring
the rice from the kitchen table, but Ellen had sequestered one of
Adelaide's old dancing slippers under the front stair. She contrived to
get it out and into action, and to land it full in Adelaide's lap by a
lucky carom against the upright of the coach window.

Adelaide looked down at it vaguely. It was one of a pair of slippers she
had got for the biggest and most fashionable ball she had ever attended.
She remembered it all--the gorgeousness of the rooms, the flowers, the
dresses, the favors, her own ecstasy in being where it was supposed to be
so difficult to get; how h