d so
enchanting a picture of virgin innocence, that Virginia could hardly
believe that she harboured in her breast, under the sacred white satin
of her bride's gown, the heretical opinions which she had uttered
downstairs in the pantry. Her charming face had attuned its expression
so perfectly to the dramatic values of the moment that she appeared, in
the words of that sentimental soul, Miss Priscilla, to be listening
already to "The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden."

"Doesn't mother look sweet?" she asked, catching sight of Virginia's
face in the mirror. "I love her in pale grey--only she ought to have
some flowers."

"I told father to order her a bunch of violets," answered Jenny. "I
wonder if he remembered to do it."

A look of pleasure, the first she had worn for days, flitted over
Virginia's face. She had all her mother's touching appreciation of
insignificant favours, and, perhaps because her pleasure was so
excessive, people shrank a little from arousing it. Like most persons
who thought perpetually of others, she was not accustomed to being
thought of very often in return.

But Oliver had remembered, and when the purple box was brought up to
her, and Jenny pinned the violets on her dress, a blush mantled her thin
cheeks, and she looked for a moment almost as young and lovely as her
daughters. Then Oliver came after Lucy, and gathering up her train, the
girl smiled at her mother and hurried out of the room. At the last
minute her qualms appeared suddenly to depart. Whatever happened in the
months and years that came afterwards, she had determined to get all she
could out of the excitement of the wedding. She had cast no loving
glance about the little room, where she was leaving her girlhood behind
her; but Virginia, lingering for an instant after the others had gone
out, looked with tear-dimmed eyes at the small white bed and the white
furniture decorated in roses. She suffered in that minute with an
intensity and a depth of feeling that Lucy had never known in the
past--that she would never know in the future--for it is given to
mothers to live not once, but twice or thrice or as many times as they
have children to live for. And the sunlight, entering through the high
window, fell very gently on the anxious love in her eyes, on the fading
white rose-leaves of her cheeks, and on the silvery mist of curls
framing her forehead.

* * * * *

That afternoon, when Lucy had motored o