by Cousin Jane Selden herself, a thin and dark
old lady with shrewd eyes and a determined chin. "I'm glad to see you,
Unity, though I should have been more glad to see Richard and Edward
Churchill! 'Woe to a stiff-necked generation!' says the Bible. Well! you
are fine enough, child, and I honour you for it! There are a few people
in the parlour--just those who go to church with us. The clock has
struck, and we'll start in half an hour. Jacqueline is in her room, and
when she doesn't look like an angel she looks like her mother. You had
best go upstairs. Mammy Chloe dressed her."

Unity mounted the dark, polished stairs to an upper hall where stood a
tall clock and a spindle-legged table with a vast jar of pot-pourri. A
door opened, framing Jacqueline, dressed in white, and wearing her
mother's wedding veil. "I knew your step," she said. "Oh, Unity, you are
good to come!"

In the bedroom they embraced. "Wild horses couldn't have kept me from
coming!" declared Unity with resolute gaiety. "Whichever married first,
the other was to be bridesmaid!--we arranged that somewhere in the dark
ages! Oh, Jacqueline, you are like a princess in a picture-book!"

"And Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

"Well, the Churchills are obstinate folk, as we all know!" answered
Unity cheerfully. "But I think time will help. They can't go on hating
forever. Uncle Dick is in the fields, and Uncle Edward is in the library
reading. There, there, honey!"

Mammy Chloe bore down upon them from the other end of the room. "Miss
Unity, don' you mek my chile cry on her weddin' mahnin'! Hit ain't
lucky to cry befo' de ring's on!"

"I'm not crying, Mammy," said Jacqueline. "I wish that I could cry. It
is you, Unity, that are like a princess in your rose and silver, with
your dear red lips, and your dear black eyes! Isn't she lovely, Mammy?"
She came close to her cousin and pinned a small brooch in the misty
folds above the white bosom. "This is my gift--it is mother's pearl
brooch. Oh, Unity, don't think too ill of me!"

"Think ill!" cried Unity, with spirit. "I think only good of you. I
think you are doing perfectly right! I'll wear your pearl always--you
were always like a pearl to me!"

"Even pearls have a speck at heart," said Jacqueline. "And there's
nothing perfectly right--or perfectly wrong. But most things cannot be
helped. Some day, perhaps, at home--at Fontenoy--they will think of the
time when they were you