tuation to Bess and Owen after I had explained
it to him.

At the door of Elmnest stood Polly in a gingham dress, but with both ends
of her person in bridal array, from the white satin bows on the looped up
plats to the white silk stockings and satin slippers, greeting us with
relief and enthusiasm. Beside her stood Aunt Mary and the parent twins,
also Bud, in the gray suit with a rose in his button-hole.

Matthew handed me out and into their respective embraces, while he also
gave Polly a bundle of dry-goods from which I could see white satin ribbon
bursting.

"Everything is ready," she confided to him.

"I knew it would be, Corn-tassel," he answered, with an expression of
affectionate confidence and pride.

Then from the embrace of Uncle Cradd I walked straight through the back
door towards the barn, leaving both Bess and Annette in a state of wild
remonstrance, with the wedding paraphernalia all being carried up the
stairs by Bud and Rufus. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, I
made my way to the barn-door and then stopped still--dead still.

It was no longer my barn--it was merely the entrance to a model poultry
farm that spread out acres and acres of model houses and runs behind it.
Chickens, both white and red, were clucking and working in all the pens,
and nowhere among them could I see the Golden Bird.

"I hope he's dead, too," I said as I turned on my heel and, without a
word, walked back to the house and up to my room, past Polly and Matthew,
who stood at the barn-door, their faces pale with anxiety.

When I considered that I had been able for months to clothe myself with
decency and leave my room in less than fifteen minutes, I could not see why
time dragged so for me when being clothed by Annette and Aunt Mary. True,
Aunt Mary paused to sniff into her handkerchief every few minutes or to
listen to Annette's French raptures as she laid upon me each foolish
garment up unto the long swath of heathenish tulle she was beginning to
arrange when an interruption occurred in the shape of Rufus, who put his
head in the door and mysteriously summoned Polly, who had come in to
exhibit her silk muslin frills, in which she was the incarnation of young
love's dream.

"You are beautiful, darling," I had just said, with the first warmth in my
voice I had felt for many days, when Rufus appeared and Polly departed to
leave Annette and Aunt Mary to the task of the tulle and orange-blossoms.
They took their t