rn's wedding day, and certainly her eyes sparkled
and her blood tingled as she threw open the window of her room and
breathed long and deep of the fresh morning air before going down to
breakfast.

"They say 'Happy is the bride that the sun shines on,'" she whispered
softly to an English sparrow that cocked his eye at her from a
neighboring tree branch. "As if a bride wouldn't be happy, sun or no
sun," she scoffed tenderly, as she turned to go down-stairs.

As it happens, however, tingling blood and sparkling eyes are a matter
of more than weather, or even weddings, as was proved a little later
when the telephone bell rang.

Kate answered the ring.

"Hullo, is that you, Kate?" called a despairing voice.

"Yes. Good morning, Bertram. Isn't this a fine day for the wedding?"

"Fine! Oh, yes, I suppose so, though I must confess I haven't noticed
it--and you wouldn't, if you had a lunatic on your hands."

"A lunatic!"

"Yes. Maybe you have, though. Is Marie rampaging around the house like a
wild creature, and asking ten questions and making twenty threats to the
minute?"

"Certainly not! Don't be absurd, Bertram. What do you mean?"

"See here, Kate, that show comes off at twelve sharp, doesn't it?"

"Show, indeed!" retorted Kate, indignantly. "The _wedding_ is at noon
sharp--as the best man should know very well."

"All right; then tell Billy, please, to see that it is sharp, or I won't
answer for the consequences."

"What do you mean? What is the matter?"

"Cyril. He's broken loose at last. I've been expecting it all along.
I've simply marvelled at the meekness with which he has submitted
himself to be tied up with white ribbons and topped with roses."

"Nonsense, Bertram!"

"Well, it amounts to that. Anyhow, he thinks it does, and he's wild. I
wish you could have heard the thunderous performance on his piano with
which he woke me up this morning. Billy says he plays everything--his
past, present, and future. All is, if he was playing his future this
morning, I pity the girl who's got to live it with him."

"Bertram!"

Bertram chuckled remorselessly.

"Well, I do. But I'll warrant he wasn't playing his future this morning.
He was playing his present--the wedding. You see, he's just waked up to
the fact that it'll be a perfect orgy of women and other confusion,
and he doesn't like it. All the samee,{sic} I've had to assure him just
fourteen times this morning that the ring, the license, the carriage,