loving a person give pain? I have an
ache in my heart--a big ache. There now, what a horrid girl I am! I am
making your eyes fill with tears. You shan't be unhappy just when
you're going to be made into a beautiful white bride. Sutton says it is
unlucky for a bride to cry. You shan't cry, Hilda, you shan't--you
mustn't."

"But I can't help crying, Judy, when I think that you are unhappy, and
when you speak of your love to me as a pain."

"I'll never speak of it again. I'll be happy--I won't fret--no, I won't
fret at all, and I won't cry even once," said the child, making a
valiant effort to bring a smile to her face. "Hilda, will you promise me
something very, very solemnly?"

"If it is in my power I certainly will, my pet."

"You have not got my wedding present yet, Hilda; but it is coming.
Promise me----"

"What, darling?"

"Promise to take it to church with you to-morrow--I'll give it to you
just before church--it will be full of me--my very heart will be in
it--take it to church with you, Hilda, and hold it in your hand when
you're giving yourself to Jasper--promise--promise."

"How excited you are, my dearest! If it makes you really happy to know
that I shall hold something of yours in my hand when I am being married,
I will certainly do so."

"Oh, it does make me happy, it does!"

CHAPTER VII.

A WEDDING PRESENT.

But my lover will not prize
All the glory that he rides in,
When he gazes in my face:
He will say: "O Love, thine eyes
Build the shrine my soul abides in,
And I kneel here for thy grace!"

--E. BARRETT BROWNING.

There was a holly tree not far from the church with berries so red and
leaves so green and shining that it was generally denuded of its
beauties to decorate the most important parts of the church.

Judy knew this holly tree well. It had been much crippled in shape and
color for the Christmas decorations, but one perfect branch had been
left where the berries still grew in full rich clusters--this special
branch had not been noticed by the gardener when he was cutting the
holly for Christmas, and Judy determined that from it she would pick the
crimson berries which were to constitute Hilda's wedding present.

"Barnes," she said to the old gardener the day before, "you mustn't
allow anyone to touch my bough of holly."

"Well, Miss Judy, you're a queer child; what bough of holly do you
mean?"

"The bough on the round