t it was past
twelve o'clock, had led the way toward tea-making, and the general
heating and toasting and mincing of odds and ends for luncheon. And they
had been in the kitchen, talking over the last scraps of this meal,
when----

When there had been laughter and voices at the open front doorway, and
when Mrs. Sheridan's startled "Wolf!" had been followed by Rose's
surprised "Norma!" Then they had come in, Wolf and Norma, laughing and
excited and bubbling with their great news. And in joy and tears,
confused interruptions and exclamations, explanations that got nowhere,
and a plentiful distribution of kisses, somehow it got itself told. They
had been married an hour ago--Norma was Wolf's wife!

The girl was radiant. Never in her life had these three who loved her
seen her so beautiful, so enchantingly confident and gay. Rose and her
mother had some little trouble, later on, in patching the sequence of
events together for the delighted but bewildered Harry, Rose's husband.
But there could be no doubt, even to the shrewd eyes of her Aunt Kate,
that Norma was ecstatically happy. Her mad kisses for Rose, the laughter
with which she described the expedition to bank and jeweller, the
license bureau and the church in Jersey City--for in order to have the
ceremony performed immediately it had been necessary to be married in
New Jersey--her delicious boldness toward the awed and rapturous and
almost stupefied Wolf, were all proof that she entertained not even the
usual girlish misgivings of the wedding day.

"You see, I've not been all tired out with trousseau and engagement
affairs and photographers and milliners and all that," she explained,
gaily. "I've only got what's in my bag there, but I've wired Aunt
Marianna, and told her to tell them all. And we'll be back on
Monday--wait until I ask my husband; Wolftone, dear, shall we be back on
Monday?"

She had the baby in her lap; they were all in the dining-room. Rose had
been assured that the bride and groom were not hungry; they had had
sandwiches somewhere--some time--oh, down near the City Hall in Jersey
City. But Rose had made more tea, and more toast, and she had opened her
own best plum jam, and they were all eating with the heartiness of
children. Presently Norma went to get in Aunt Kate's lap, and asked her
if she was glad, and made herself so generally engaging and endearing,
with her slender little body clasped in the big motherly arms and her
soft face resting a