s of my dress. I pressed the leaves, and they're in my
Bible to this day."

"I had a dark blue silk with a black satin stripe runnin' through it,"
confided Mrs. Williams, "and after I got through wearin' it, I lined a
quilt with it, and it's on Anna Belle's bed now."

The two women were rocking gently to and fro; both were smiling faintly,
and there was a retrospective look in their eyes. Memory, like a
questing dove, was flying between the past and the present, bringing
back now a leaf and now a flower plucked from the shores of old romance,
and they were no longer the middle-aged mothers of married children, but
young brides with life before them; and as they talked, more to
themselves than to each other, with long intervals of silence, the
afternoon waned, the sun was low, and the little garden lay in shadow.

"What a long day this has been!" exclaimed Mrs. Williams, rousing
herself from a reverie. "Why, it seems to me I've lived a hundred years
since I got up this mornin'."

"I'd better see about makin' the fire and gettin' a cup of tea," said
Mrs. Martin. "I can tell by the shadow of that maple tree, that it's
near supper time." Then hesitatingly, as if it were a doubtful point of
etiquette, "It looks like foolishness to have two fires. Mine's already
laid; suppose you eat supper with me to-night."

"I'll be glad to," responded Mrs. Williams heartily, "for I haven't half
got my things in order yet." She followed Mrs. Martin to the kitchen,
and together they set the table and waited for the kettle to boil. Mrs.
Martin was pleased to find that Mrs. Williams preferred black tea to
green, and while she was slicing the bread, Mrs. Williams disappeared
for a moment, returning with something wrapped in a napkin. She unfolded
it, disclosing huge slices of wedding cake, white cake, golden cake, and
spice cake dark and fragrant.

"There!" she said complacently. "You and me were too flustered to eat
much at the weddin', but maybe we'll enjoy a piece of this cake now."

Silently and abstractedly the two women ate the simple meal. Now and
then Mrs. Martin looked across the table at the vacant place where Henry
had always sat, and as Mrs. Williams ate wedding cake, her thoughts were
with the daughter whose face for twenty years had smiled at her across
the little square leaf-table in the old home; also, she had a queer,
uneasy feeling, as if she had spent the afternoon with her friend and
should have gone home before supp