"You don't call the dress you are to wear to-morrow 'every-day clothes,'
do you?" said Lesley, with a smiling glance towards the lovely gown in
which Ethel had elected to be married, and then to wear during the first
part of her wedding-journey.

"I call it just a nice, pretty frock--nothing else," said Ethel,
complacently, "one that I can pay calls in afterwards. But I could not
refuse the lovely lace Maurice insisted on giving me: so I shall wear a
veil instead of a bonnet--it is the only concession I make to
conventionality."

"I wish you would go to sleep, Ethel: you will look very pale under your
veil to-morrow."

"Well, I will try; but I don't feel like it. I hope Maurice will be back
in good time. It was very tiresome of that patient of his to send for
him in such a hurry."

Then there was a silence, for both girls were growing sleepy; and it was
with a yawn that Ethel at last inquired--

"Lesley, why won't your father come to my wedding?"

"Won't he?" said Lesley, with a little start.

"Not he: I asked him again on Saturday, and he refused."

"Perhaps," said Lesley, not very steadily, "it gives him pain to be
present at a wedding: he speaks sometimes--as if he did not like to hear
of them."

"Oh, you poor, dear thing, I had forgotten all that trouble," said
Ethel, giving her friend a hug which nearly strangled her; "but won't it
come right in the end? Captain Duchesne says that she is so sweet, so
charming--and your father is just delightful."

"I think I can't talk about it," said Lesley, very quietly.

"Then we won't. Did you know I had asked Captain Duchesne to the
breakfast?"

"Oh, Ethel, how heartless of you!" Lesley said, laughing in spite of
herself. For Captain Duchesne's devotion was patent to all the world.

At last they slept in each other's arms; but at seven o'clock Ethel was
skimming about the room like a busy fairy, and it was Lesley, sleeping
heavily after two or three wakeful nights, who had to be aroused by the
little bride-elect, and Ethel laughed merrily to see her friend's start
of surprise.

"Ethel! Ethel! People should be waiting on you and here you are bringing
me tea and bread and butter. This is too bad!"

"It's a new departure," Ethel laughed. "There is no law against a
bride's making herself useful as well as ornamental, is there? You will
have to hurry up, all the same, Lesley: we are dreadfully late already.
And it is the loveliest morning you ever saw--and th