ll. Are you
sure it is all right, dear?"

"Oh, yes, sir!" Marcia raised her tear-filled eyes. "I am doing it quite
of myself. No one has made me. I was glad I might. It was so dreadful for
David!"

"But child, do you love him?" the old minister said, searching her face
closely.

Marcia's eyes shone out radiant and child-like through her tears.

"Oh, yes, sir! I love him of course. No one could help loving David."

There was a tap at the door and the Squire entered. With a sigh the
minister turned away, but there was trouble in his heart. The love of the
girl had been all too frankly confessed. It was not as he would have had
things for a daughter of his, but it could not be helped of course, and he
had no right to interfere. He would like to speak to David, but David had
not come out of his room yet. When he did there was but a moment for them
alone and all he had opportunity to say was:

"Mr. Spafford, you will be good to the little girl, and remember she is
but a child. She has been dear to us all."

David looked at him wonderingly, earnestly, in reply:

"I will do all in my power to make her happy," he said.

The hour had come, and all things, just as Madam Schuyler had planned,
were ready. The minister took his place, and the impatient bridesmaids
were in a flutter, wondering why Kate did not call them in to see her.
Slowly, with measured step, as if she had practised many times, Marcia,
the maiden, walked down the hall on her father's arm. He was bowed with
his trouble and his face bore marks of the sudden calamity that had
befallen his house, but the watching guests thought it was for sorrow at
giving up his lovely Kate, and they said one to another, "How much he
loved her!"

The girl's face drooped with gentle gravity. She scarcely felt the
presence of the guests she had so much dreaded, for to her the ceremony
was holy. She was giving herself as a sacrifice for the sin of her sister.
She was too young and inexperienced to know all that would be thought and
said as soon as the company understood. She also felt secure behind that
film of lace. It seemed impossible that they could know her, so softly and
so mistily it shut her in from the world. It was like a kind of moving
house about her, a protection from all eyes. So sheltered she might go
through the ceremony with composure. As yet she had not begun to dread the
afterward. The hall was wide through which she passed, and the day was
bright, but the