felt that the harder the obstacles to be overcome for her dear sake,
the better. He would like to have had a few at that moment as a relief
to his pent-up emotions.

He remembered in a sort of impatient daze the congratulations that
followed--with the faces of Mrs. Halliday and Barton standing out a
trifle more prominently--and then the luncheon. It seemed another week
before she went upstairs to change into her traveling-dress; another
week before she reappeared. Then came good-byes and the shower of
rice, with an old shoe or so mixed in. He had sent her trunk the day
before to the mountain hotel where they were to be for a week, but
they walked to the station, he carrying her suitcase. Then he found
himself on the train, and in another two hours they were at the hotel.
It was like an impossible dream come true when finally they stood for
the first time alone--she as his wife. He held out his arms to her and
she came this time without protest.

"Heart of mine," he whispered as he kissed her lips again and
again,--"heart of mine, this is a bully old world."

"You've made it that, Don."

"I? I haven't had anything to do about it except to get you."

CHAPTER XXXIV

DON MAKES GOOD

They had not one honeymoon, but two or three. When they left the hotel
and came back to town, it was another honeymoon to enter together the
house in which she had played so important a part without ever having
seen it. When they stepped out of the cab she insisted upon first
seeing it from the outside, instead of rushing up the steps as he was
for doing.

"Don," she protested, "I--I don't want to have such a pleasure over
with all at once. I want to get it bit by bit."

There was not much to see, to be sure, but a door and a few windows--a
section similar to sections to the right and left of which it was a
part. But it was a whole house, a house with lower stories and upper
stories and a roof--all his, all hers. To her there was something
still unreal about it.

He humored her delay, though Nora was standing impatiently at the
door, anxious to see the Pendleton bride. But when she finally did
enter, Nora, at the smile she received, had whatever fears might have
been hers instantly allayed.

"Gawd bless ye," she beamed.

Sally refused to remove her wraps until she had made her inspection
room by room, sitting down in each until she had grasped every detail.
So they went from the first floor to the top floor and came back