a trifle late, and the guests were all early
which gave opportunity for soul-satisfying gossip.

"Ain't those flowers lovely! I never saw anything to beat 'em except
maybe, at Elder Larkins' funeral. They say Persis Dale went over to
the Lakeview florist's in that car of hers and brought back flowers
enough to fill a wash tub."

"Mis' West looks real nice in that new black silk. There's nothing
like black for toning down a fat woman."

"There's Eddie Ryan in a dress-suit. Wonder if it's his'n or just
borrowed. It hangs kind of baggy. Shouldn't wonder if his cousin up
to Boston let him take his."

Annabel Sinclair's slight girlish figure was the center of interest
until the entrance of the bridal party. She must have guessed how the
tongues were wagging but her color did not fluctuate under the ordeal.
At last Annabel had come to the point of assisting nature. The carmine
had been applied with artistic restraint, and she had never looked
lovelier, but her happiness in her beauty had vanished. To retain the
admiration which was the breath in her nostrils, she must henceforth
resort to artifice, covering up and hiding what would sooner or later
be revealed in spite of her. She was not thinking of Diantha as she
sat looking straight before her but only of her own hard fate.

"Annabel Sinclair might be the bride herself," remarked one kindly
matron on the other side of the church. "Beats all how she keeps her
looks."

"Ain't that a handsome dress, though," sighed her companion. "She had
it made in the city. But Persis Dale made Diantha's dress, and
somebody who saw it, told me it was the handsomest thing she ever
clapped her eyes on. Persis Dale sets everything by that girl."

If the occupants of the pews enjoyed the long wait, not so Thad West.
Pale and perspiring, he looked more like a patient about to be conveyed
to an operating table, than a bridegroom on the threshold of his
happiness.

"What do you s'pose is wrong, Scotty?" He clutched the arm of the
friend selected to stand by him in this ordeal. "It's way past time."

"Oh, well, girls are always late," returned Scotty with soothing
intent. Thad thought wrathfully that it was all very well for him to
take that tone. He wasn't going to be married, hang it.

"Ring all right, Scotty?"

"Sure thing." But in spite of the prompt assurance the best man's hand
went to his waistcoat pocket and fumbled a long nervous minute while
the perspiratio