s. She is the
super-mother: She is the woman with the universal mother-heart.

You, the "Auntie-Mother" to two lucky little girls, are of this type
which I so honor. And that is why I dedicate to you this story--with
great affection, and with profound respect.

Your friend,
ELEANOR GATES.

New York, 1917.

APRON-STRINGS

CHAPTER I

"I tell you, there's something funny about it, Steve,--having the wedding
out on that scrap of lawn." It was the florist who was speaking. He was
a little man, with a brown beard that lent him a professional air. He
gave a jerk of the head toward the high bay-window of the Rectory
drawing-room, set down his basket of smilax on the well-cared-for
Brussels that, after a disappearing fashion, carpeted the drawing-room
floor, and proceeded to select and cut off the end of a cigar.

"Something wrong," assented Steve. He found and filled a pipe.

The other now dropped his voice to a whisper. "'Mrs. Milo,' I says to
the old lady, 'give me the Church to decorate and I'll make it look like
something.' 'My good man,' she come back,--you know the way she
talks--'the wedding will be in the Close.'"

"A stylish name for not much of anything," observed Steve. "The Close!
Why not call it a yard and be done with it?"

"English," explained the florist. "--Well, I pointed out that _this_
room would be a good place for the ceremony. I could hang the
wedding-bell right in the bay-window. But at that, _click_ come the old
lady's teeth together. 'The wedding will be in the Close,' she says
again, and so I shut my mouth."

"Temper."

"Exactly. And why? What's the matter with the Church? and what's the
matter with this room?--that they have to go outdoors to marry up the
poor youngsters. What's worse, that Close hasn't got the best
reputation. For there stands that orphan basket, in plain sight----"

"It's _no_ place for a wedding!"

"Of course not!--a yard where of a night poor things come sneaking in----"

A door at the far end of the long room had opened softly. Now a voice,
gentle, well-modulated, and sorrowfully reproving, halted the protesting
of the florist, and paralyzed his upraised finger. "That will do," said
the voice.

What had frozen the gesture of his employer only accelerated the
movements of Steve. Recollecting that he was in his shirt-sleeves, he
snatched the pipe from his mouth, seized upon the smilax basket, and
sidled swiftly through the door l