e her
wedding and to have a sort of farewell bat with Matthew and me.

"What about your and Ann's wedding to Matthew, Miss Polly?" I heard Cale
Johnson ask Polly as she and Matthew were untangling a bolt of wide,
white-satin ribbon that I had tangled. "All the show to be of rustics?"

"Nobody but Polly is going to stand by us," said Matthew, looking
cautiously around to see if I was listening. "Ann doesn't believe in making
much fuss over a wedding."

"I didn't know I was to be in it until Miss Bess took me to be fitted--oh,
it is a dream of a dress, isn't it, Mr. Matthew?" said Polly, with her
enthusiasm also tempered by a glance in my direction.

"It sure is," answered Matthew, with the greatest approval, as he regarded
Polly with parental pride.

"Well, I'm glad I'm invited to see it," said Cale as he glanced at Polly
tenderly. "I mean to be at the wedding, Matt," he added politely. Cale was
to be best man with Polly as maid of honor at Bess's wedding, and he had
been standing and sitting close at Polly's side for more than ten days.

"Let's try it all over again, everybody," called Bess's wearied voice,
interrupting Polly's enthusiastic description of ruffles.

The wedding day was a nightmare. Annette and the housemaid and Bess and a
girl from Madame Felicia's packed up three trunks full of my clothes and
sent them all to the station.

"I wish I never had to see them again," I said viciously under my breath as
the expressmen carried out the last trunk.

"Now, dear, in these two suitcases are your wedding things and your
going-away gown. Your dress is in the long box and we will send them all
out early in the morning in my car. Matthew will drive us out as soon as we
can get ready," Bess had said the night before, as she sank on my bed and
spread out with fatigue.

CHAPTER XII

The next morning it took Annette until ten o'clock and a shower of tears to
get Bess and me to sit up and take our coffee. She said the decorators were
downstairs beginning on Bess's wedding decorations and that the sun was
shining on my wedding-day.

"Well, I wish it had delayed itself a couple of hours. I'm too sleepy to
get married," I grumbled as I sat up to take the tray of coffee on my
knees.

"Owen is a darling," I heard Bess murmur from her bed, which was against
the wall and mine as our rooms opened into each other. I also heard a
rustle of paper and smelled the perfume of flowers.

"This is for Mademoiselle f