him walked his twin sister--as like Tom Cameron as another pea in a
pod--and Ann Hicks, both in rose-color, completing a color scheme worthy
of the taste of whoever had originated it. For the sheer beauty of the
picture, this wedding would long be remembered.

In the very last pew, on the aisle, sat an eager old colored woman--one
of those typical "mammies" now so seldom seen--in an old-fashioned bonnet
and shawl. She was of a bulbous figure, and her dark face shone with
perspiration and delight as she stared at the coming bride and groom.

Jennie saw Mammy Rose (the old woman had been a dependent of the Stone
family for years), and had the occasion been much more serious than
Jennie thought it, the plump girl would surely have smiled at Mammy Rose.

The old woman bobbed up, making an old-time genuflection. She thrust out
a neat, paper-covered parcel which she had held carefully in her
capacious lap all through the ceremony.

"Miss Janie--ma blessed baby!" she whispered. "I is suttenly glad to see
dis here day! Heaven is a-smilin' on yo'. And here is one o' ma birfday
cakes yo' liked so mighty well. Mammy Rose done make it for her chile--de
las' she ever will make yo' now yo' is goin' to foreign paths."

Another girl than Jennie might have been confused, or even angered, by
the interruption of the procession. But Jennie could be nothing if not
kind. Her own hands were filled with her bouquet--it was enormous. She
stopped, however, before the old woman.

"As thoughtful for me as ever, Mammy Rose, aren't you?" she said
pleasantly. "And you know all my little failings. Henri," she said to her
husband.

But the courtly young Frenchman had quite as great a sense of _noblesse
oblige_ as his bride. He bowed to the black woman as though she was the
highest lady in the land and accepted the parcel, tied clumsily with baby
ribbon by the gnarled fingers of Mammy Rose.

They moved on and the smiling, yet tearful, old woman, sank back into her
seat. If there was anything needed to make this a perfect occasion, it
was this little incident. The bride and groom came out into the smiling
sunshine with sunshine in their hearts as well as on their faces.

"I knew," whispered Helen Cameron to Ann Hicks, who stalked beside her in
rather a mannish way, "that Heavy Stone could not even be married without
something ridiculous happening."

"'Ridiculous'?" repeated the Western girl, with something like a catch in
her throat.

"Well,