"Oh, yes, he will, and you'll want him to--you'll want to turn your heart
inside out for him to read, to say nothing of your letters."

She stood up and put both of her hands on her sister's shoulders. "But
you mustn't tell him, Con. No matter how much you want to, it's my
secret and Barry's--promise me, Con----"

"But, Mary, a wife can't."

"Yes, she _can_ have secrets from her husband. And this belongs to us,
not to him. You've married him, Con, but we haven't."

Aunt Isabelle, gentle Aunt Isabelle, shut off from the world of sound,
could not hear Con's little cry of protest, but she looked up just in
time to see the shimmering dress drop to the floor, and to see the bride,
sheathed like a lily in whiteness, bury her head on Mary's shoulder.

Aunt Isabelle stumbled forward. "My dear," she asked, in her thin
troubled voice, "what makes you cry?"

"It's nothing, Aunt Isabelle." Mary's tone was not loud, but Aunt
Isabelle heard and nodded.

"She's dead tired, poor dear, and wrought up. I'll run and get the
aromatic spirits."

With Aunt Isabella out of the way, Mary set herself to repair the damage
she had done. "I've made you cry on your wedding day, Con, and I wanted
you to be so happy. Oh, tell Gordon, if you must. But you'll find that
he won't look at it as you and I have looked at it. He won't make the
excuses."

"Oh, yes he will." Constance's happiness seemed to come back to her
suddenly in a flood of assurance. "He's the best man in the world, Mary,
and so kind. It's because you don't know him that you think as you do."

Mary could not quench the trust in the blue eyes. "Of course he's good,"
she said, "and you are going to be the happiest ever, Constance."

Then Aunt Isabelle came back and found that the need for the aromatic
spirits was over, and together the loving hands hurried Constance into
her going away gown of dull blue and silver, with its sable trimmed wrap
and hat.

"If it hadn't been for Aunt Frances, how could I have faced Gordon's
friends in London?" said Constance. "Am I all right now, Mary?"

"Lovely, Con, dear."

But it was Aunt Isabelle's hushed voice which gave the appropriate
phrase. "She looks like a bluebird--for happiness."

At the foot of the stairway Gordon was waiting for his bride--handsome
and prosperous as a bridegroom should be, with a dark sleek head and
eager eyes, and beside him Porter Bigelow, topping him by a head, and a
red head at that.