ich she tore up to her mother's room.

"Mother! Something has bothered father!"

"Well, yes," Mrs. Houghton said; "a little. Maurice is married."

Edith's lips fell apart; "Maurice? _Married_? Who to? Did she wear a
veil? I don't see why father minds."

Mrs. Houghton, standing in front of her mirror, said, dryly: "There are
things more important than veils, when it comes to getting married. In
the first place, they eloped--"

"Oh, how lovely! I am going to elope when I get married!"

"I hope you won't have such bad taste. Of course they ought not to have
got married that way. But the thing that bothers your father, is that
the lady Maurice has married is--is older than he."

"How much older?" Edith demanded; "a year?"

"I don't just know. Probably twenty years older."

Edith was silent, rapidly adding up nineteen and twenty; then she
gasped, "_Thirty-nine_!"

"Well, about that; and father is sorry, because Maurice can't go back to
college. He will have to go into business."

Edith saw no cause for regret in this. "Guess he's glad not to have to
learn things! But why weren't we invited to the wedding? I always meant
to be Maurice's bridesmaid."

Mrs. Houghton said she didn't know. Edith was silent, for a whole
minute. Then she said, soberly:

"I suppose father's sorry 'cause she'll die so soon, she's so old? And
then Maurice will feel awfully. Poor Maurice! Well, I'll live with him,
and comfort him."

"My dear, I'm fifty!" Mrs. Houghton said, much amused.

"Oh, well, _you_--" Edith demurred; "that's different. You're my mother,
and you--" She paused; "I never thought of you being old, or dying,
_ever_. And yet I suppose you are rather old?" She pondered. "I suppose
some day you'll die? Mother!--promise me you won't!" she said,
quaveringly.

"Edith, don't be a goose!" Mrs. Houghton said, laughing--but she turned
and kissed the rosy, anxious face, "Maurice's wife isn't old at all.
She's quite young. It's only that he is so much younger."

Edith lapsed into silence. She was very quiet for the rest of that
summer morning. Just before dinner she went across the west pasture to
Doctor Bennett's house, and, hailing Johnny, told him the news. His
indifference--for he only looked at her, with his mild, nearsighted
brown eyes, and said, "Huh?"--irritated her so that she would not
confide her dismay at Maurice's approaching widowerhood, but ran home
to a sympathetic kitchen: "Katy! Maurice got eloped!"

Katy