, and had beaten Mrs. Lytton to a frazzle in a
match last month? An' why didn't she say somethin' about how generous
Miss Devon was to caddies in the matter of skates and boxing-gloves and
clothes? And why didn't she say what a prince Laurie Devon was, instead
of all dat stale stuff what everybody knew?

But now Mrs. Lytton was exclaiming over the beauty of the bride, and
here Jimmy whole-heartedly agreed with her.

"How lovely she looks!" she breathed. "She's like Laurie, so stunning
she rather takes one's breath away! Oh, dear, I'm going to cry, I know I
am! And crying makes my nose actually purple!"

The excitement in the street had communicated itself to the dignified
assemblage in the church. The occupants of the pews were turning in
their seats. The first notes of the great pipe-organ rolled forth.
Friends who had known and loved Barbara Devon since she was a little
girl, and many who had known her father and mother before her, looked
now at the radiant figure she presented as she walked slowly up the
aisle on her brother's arm, and saw that figure through an unexpected
mist.

"What a pair!" whispered Mrs. Renway, who had a pagan love of beauty.
"They ought to be put in one of their own parks and kept there as a
permanent exhibit for the delight of the public. It's almost criminal
negligence to leave that young man at large," she darkly predicted.
"Something will happen if they do!"

Mrs. Lytton absently agreed.

"The bridegroom is very handsome, too," she murmured. "That stunning,
insolent creature who is acting as matron of honor, and looking bored to
death by it, is his sister, Mrs. Ordway, of New York. The first
bridesmaid is another New York friend, a Russian girl named Sonya
Orleneff, that Barbara met in some lodging-house. And _will_ you look at
the Infant Samuel!"

An expression of acute strain settled over the features of Mrs. Renway.
She hurriedly adjusted her eye-glasses.

"The _what?_" she whispered, excitedly. "Where? I don't see any infant!"

Mrs. Lytton laughed.

"Of course you don't! It's too small and too near the floor. It's a
thirty-months-old youngster Barbara picked up in a New York tenement.
She calls him the Infant Samuel, and she has brought him here with his
mother, to live on her estate. They say she intends to educate him. He's
carrying her train and he's dressed as a page, in tiny white satin
breeches and lace ruffles. Oh, _don't_ miss him!"

A little ripple stirred the as