d look lovely in them, and every woman wants to look her very best
at her bridal."

But the breakfast bell was ringing, and, putting them carefully back in
the trunk and relocking it, she hastened down to the dining room.

There were a number of guests in the house, among them the Emburys of
Magnolia Hall, and, naturally, the talk at the table ran principally
upon the approaching marriage of Molly's brother, Dr. Percival.

"I am much pleased," she said; "Maud will make a dear little sister for
me, and I hope will find me a good and kind one to her. And if Sydney
goes along she will be about as good as another. Perhaps Bob and she
will get up another match, and then she will be my sister. I wish Bob
could have come along with the rest of us."

"Yes, I wish he could," said Mrs. Travilla. "He must take his turn at
another time, leaving Dick to look after the patients."

"I think Maud feels a trifle disappointed that she has no time to get up
a grand wedding dress," Molly ran on, "but the one she wore as Rosie's
bridesmaid is very pretty and becoming. Still it is not white; and I
heard her say that she had always been determined to be married in
white, if she married at all."

"Oh, well," said Mr. Embury, "the getting married is the chief thing,
and, after it is all over, it won't matter much whether it was done in
white or some other colour. I presume most folks would think it better
to be married even in black than not at all."

"I think that depends very much upon what sort of husband one gets,"
laughed Zoe. "I got married without any bridal finery; but it was a very
fortunate thing for me after all," giving her husband a proudly
affectionate glance.

"Yes," he said with a smile, "and I wouldn't exchange the wife I got in
that way for the most exquisitely attired bride in Christendom."

Mrs. Travilla kept her own counsel in regard to her plans for Maud's
relief, until breakfast and family worship were over; but then invited
Molly to her boudoir, brought out the dress and veil she had been
looking at, and disclosed her plan for Maud.

Molly was delighted.

"Oh, cousin, how good in you!" she cried. "I think Maud will be wild
with joy to be so nicely brought out of her difficulty. For the dress is
splendid, and, as you say, hardly out of the present fashion in its
make-up. And the veil is just too lovely for anything! Fully as handsome
as Rosie's was, and I thought it the very handsomest I had ever seen."

"Th