r, going back and
forth over our many mistakes, and making happy plans for the future,
with Nancy the centre of every plan.

A month later the marriage took place in the little chapel on the
Burnside, on a morning so fair and bright and joyous that it seemed
made for such a happening. All the old friends were there--Janet and
Hugh, Dame Dickenson and Uncle Ben, the girls from the lace-school,
Jeanie Henderlin with the Lapraiks, and Huey MacGrath, who cried
without intermission from the time he arose in the morning until late
in the day, when, overcome by the punch, he was found asleep with his
head on the Hall Bible.

Jamie played the violin, and as Nancy and I entered the church, Danvers
and Billy Deuceace were waiting for us at the railing. It was such a
misty, glorified, radiant Nancy I had upon my arm, that Danvers waited
no longer after the first look, his impatience being such that he left
Billy Deuceace, and, coming down the aisle, took her from me before we
were half-way to the altar. Somewhat set back by the suddenness of
this, I turned to Sandy, who was near--Sandy, with a face as glad, as
overjoyed as my own--who, seeing the position I was left in, joined me,
and we walked together to the altar-rail and stood shoulder to shoulder
as our two children were united until God do them part.

Looking down the years to come we saw other Sandy Carmichaels and other
Jock Stairs together in the bare old playground we had known; saw
splendid men and women, born of our son and daughter, making the world
better and stronger for our having lived, and the joy within me was so
strong that the tears stood in my eyes and trembled down my face.
Turning suddenly, I found Sandy as moist-eyed as myself, and while the
service was being read I reached toward him, and we stood, hands
gripped, until the end, in memory of our dead youth and of our
friendship that could never die.

* * * * *

And like an old man who tells a tale limpingly, and covers the ground
again to make its points clear to the listener, I set down a scene some
five years later in the grounds of Stair. We were all there, Nancy and
Danvers, Sandy, Pitcairn, and myself--and two Newcomers, the most
spoiled and petted children, it is my belief, upon the entire earth.

"I had a letter from Pailey to-day, Nancy," said I, "proposing a third
edition of your poems."[11]

[11] The last published poems written by Nancy Stai