way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could
get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne
said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on
rollers, and marked,--"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific
preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say,
with a gentle prudence,--"If somebody should give you an observatory,
or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at _that_, dear."

Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did
not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of
the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he
wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home.
_He_ did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us
afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her
little home had been broken through and let in heaven.

We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till
September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military
engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given
my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West
Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do.

Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs.
Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a
line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole,
fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing.

It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone
from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and
beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white
among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in
blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with
perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from
the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the
grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid
vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines.

Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite
asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black
silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up
stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who
came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to
eat at twe