thetic, Kit?"

But Mary Houghton shook her head: "It is Maurice who is pathetic--my
poor Maurice!..."

When they went down to the east porch, with its great white columns,
and its broad steps leading into Mrs. Houghton's gay and fragrant
garden, they found Edith there before them--sitting on the top step, her
arms around her knees, her worshiping eyes fixed on the Bride. Edith had
nothing to say; it was enough to look at the "bridal couple," as the
kitchen had named them. When her father and mother appeared, she did
manage, in the momentary bustle of rising and offering chairs, to say
to Maurice:

"Oh, isn't she lovely! Oh, Maurice, let's go out behind the barn after
supper and talk! Maurice, _did_ she bring her harp? I want to see her
play on it! I saw her wedding ring," she ended, in an ecstatic whisper.

"She doesn't play on the harp; she plays on the piano. Did you twig her
hair?" Maurice whispered back; "it's like black down!"

Edith was speechless with adoration; she wished, passionately, that
Maurice would put his coat down for the Bride to step on, like Sir
Walter Raleigh! "for she is a _Queen_!" Edith thought: then Maurice
pulled one of her pigtails and she kicked him--and after that she was
forgotten, for the grown people began to talk, and say it had been a hot
day, and that the strawberries needed rain--but Eleanor hoped there
wouldn't be a thunderstorm.

"They _have_ to say things, I suppose," Edith reflected, patiently: "but
after supper, Maurice and I will talk." So she bore with her father and
mother, who certainly tried to be conversational. The Bride, Edith
noticed, was rather silent, and Maurice, though grown up to the extent
of being married, hadn't much to say--but once he winked at Edith and
again tried to pull her hair,--so she knew that he, also, was patient.
She was too absorbed to return the wink. She just stared at Eleanor. She
only dared to speak to her once; then, breathlessly: "I--I'm going to go
to your school, when I'm sixteen." It was as if she looked forward to a
pilgrimage to a shrine! It was impossible not to see the worship in her
face; Eleanor saw her smile made Edith almost choke with bliss. But,
like herself, the Bride had nothing to say. Eleanor just sat in sweet,
empty silence, and watched Maurice, twisting old Rover's ears, and
answering Mrs. Houghton's maternal questions about his winter
underclothing and moths; she caught that wink at Edith, and the
occasional broad gr