as
Muriel and more slender, had hair of spun gold, and she was looking up
with an eagerness which she could hardly restrain.

With a low, surprised cry, Smiles hurried downward, drawing her hand
from Philip's arm and extending both her own.

"Little Lou. Can it really be you? Oh, my dear."

And, heedless of the cluster of waiting friends beyond, she caught the
flushing, bashful, happy child into her arms.

"Oh, Smiles, haint hit all too wonderful. Hit's like dreamy-land, an'
I'm plumb erfeered thet I'll wake up an' find hit haint real. But
_yo're_ real, my Smiles, an' oh, how I loves ye."

There was a suspicious moisture in more eyes than those of Rose, as she
released the child and moved forward again, following the flower girls
into the room where waited the man who was all in all to her.

Donald stood just to one side of a canopied altar made of white roses
and interwoven ferns, and before it was a tall, slender man in the
vestments of the Episcopal Church, whose thin, saintlike face was topped
by hair of the purest silver-white.

Smiles felt her heart swelling almost painfully with a great new
happiness; her lips parted, and she wanted to draw her hand across her
eyes and brush away the sudden tears which she knew were there. For the
rector was her own dear Mr. Talmadge.

Now Donald was at her side, and his strong fingers were returning the
grateful, loving pressure of her own. _He_ understood how full of
gratitude was her heart, and was repaid.

The low, clear voice, tuned to the winds of the forest, began the words
of the beautiful service. It was, indeed, all a dream, and she felt the
unreality of it until the benediction had been spoken, and the hidden
orchestra struck the first joyous chords of the triumphant march from
Lohengrin. Then, from her husband's arms she turned to the embrace of
the mountain minister, and of Philip, and little Lou, and Gertrude
Merriman, and Dorothy Roberts, and of all those other friends, old and
new, who were so dear to her.

No explanations were possible for many minutes to come; but at length
she heard the story of the secret trip "which could not be postponed,"
of how "the reverend"--now well and strong at last--had gladly consented
to leave his beloved mountain home, for the first time in many, many
years, and come north on this sacredest of missions; of how Judd had
yielded to the request that Lou accompany them, too; and finally of how
her mountain lover of the old