sper. "Do you remember how surprised Aunt Su was when you made
up a pattern?"

"Well, I hadn't thought of it for quite some time," returned Miss Hulett,
in exactly the same tone of everyday remark. As she spoke she slipped her
arm under the other's head and poked the pillow up to a more comfortable
shape. "Now you lay perfectly still," she commanded in the hectoring tone
of the born nurse; "I'm goin' to run down and make you up a good hot cup
of sassafras tea."

I followed her down into the kitchen and was met by the same refusal to
be melodramatic which I had encountered in Ev'leen Ann. I was most anxious
to know what version of my extraordinary morning I was to give out to the
world, but hung silent, positively abashed by the cool casualness of the
other woman as she mixed her brew. Finally, "Shall I tell 'Niram--What
shall I say to Ev'leen Ann? If anybody asks me--" I brought out with
clumsy hesitation.

At the realization that her reserve and family pride were wholly at the
mercy of any report I might choose to give, even my iron hostess faltered.
She stopped short in the middle of the floor, looked at me silently,
piteously, and found no word.

I hastened to assure her that I would attempt no hateful picturesqueness
of narration. "Suppose I just say that you were rather lonely here, now
that Ev'leen Ann has left you, and that you thought it would be nice to
have your sister come to stay with you, so that 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann can
be married?"

Emma Hulett breathed again. She walked toward the stairs with the steaming
cup in her hand. Over her shoulder she remarked, "Well, yes, ma'am; that
would be as good a way to put it as any, I guess."

'Niram and Ev'leen Ann were standing up to be married. They looked very
stiff and self-conscious, and Ev'leen Ann was very pale. 'Niram's big
hands, bent in the crook of a man who handles tools, hung down by his new
black trousers. Ev'leen Ann's strong fingers stood out stiffly from one
another. They looked hard at the minister and repeated after him in low
and meaningless tones the solemn and touching words of the marriage
service. Back of them stood the wedding company, in freshly washed and
ironed white dresses, new straw hats, and black suits smelling of camphor.
In the background, among the other elders, stood Paul and Horace and I--my
husband and I hand in hand; Horace twiddling the black ribbon which holds
his watch, and looking bored. Through the open windows into