ntly, a latent flaw in
Shirley. "What you forget is, we have something that makes other things
of no account. And besides, trials are just what you make them. If you
look at them just as an adventure, part of a big splendid fight you're
making, they become very simple--you can even get fun out of them. And
that's what we're going to do."

Maizie, with a sigh, yielded the point. But, "David," she said
earnestly, "promise me one thing, won't you?"

"Of course, Maizie. Anything but the one."

"Then, if anything happens and if you should happen to mislay those
spectacles and--by mistake, of course--put on another pair, you won't
judge her too harshly, will you? Just say, 'It's all the fault of that
homely old Maizie, who didn't teach Shirley to take life so seriously as
she ought to have done.' You'll say that--and think it--won't you?"

David laughed at the absurd notion. "That's easy to promise."

They were married in May, on a night when the wind howled and the rain
drove fiercely. The rich aunt gave Shirley the wedding, in the big house
on the hill, and intimated that therewith the term of her largess had
expired. All of Shirley's home friends were there, exuberantly gay and
festive, making merry because two lives were to be mated, as though that
were a light matter. The Jim Blaisdells and Dick Holden, who was to be
best man, were there thinking of David.

In the room reserved for the groom Dick turned from the mirror where he
had been complacently regarding his gardenia, and caught a glimpse of
David's face.

"I say, old man, what's wrong? Funk? Cheer up. It'll soon be over."

"It isn't that."

Over David it had suddenly come that the mating of lives is not a light
matter. Standing at a window, he had caught from the storm a vague
presage of perils and pitfalls approaching, through and around which he
must be guide for another. That other was very, very dear to him. The
thought set him to quaking. It was the first responsibility he had had
in all his life.

Then quick upon the thought surged a wave of deep poignant tenderness for
her to whom he must be guide.

There was a tap at the door, answered by Dick.

"They're ready. All right, old man?"

"All right," David said. "I'm ready."

A minute later he stood waiting, while the old music rolled from the
organ. A slender veiled figure appeared in a doorway. The mist in his
eyes cleared away. Very steadily he took her. . . . .

The