tradition among the Gordons that no luck would
attend the bride who did not carry a white rose from Mary Gordon's
rose-tree.

Long years ago the tree had given up blooming, nor could all the
pruning and care given it coax a single blossom from it. Miss Corona,
tinctured with the superstition apt to wait on a lonely womanhood,
believed in her heart that the rosebush had a secret sympathy with the
fortunes of the Gordon women. She, the last of them on the old
homestead, would never need the bride roses. Wherefore, then, should
the old tree bloom? And now, after all these years, it had flung all
its long-hoarded sweetness into blossom again. Miss Corona thrilled at
the thought. The rosebush had bloomed again for a Gordon bride, but
Miss Corona was sure there was another meaning in it too; she
believed it foretokened some change in her own life, some
rejuvenescence of love and beauty like to that of the ancient
rose-tree. She bent over its foam of loveliness almost reverently.

"They have bloomed for Juliet's wedding," she murmured. "A Gordon
bride must wear the bride roses, indeed she must. And this--why, it is
almost a miracle."

She ran, light-footedly as a girl, to the house for scissors and a
basket. She would send Juliet Gordon the bride roses. Her cheeks were
pink from excitement as she snipped them off. How lovely they were!
How very large and fragrant! It was as if all the grace and perfume
and beauty and glory of those twenty lost summers were found here at
once in them. When Miss Corona had them ready, she went to the door
and called, "Charlotte! Charlotte!"

Now Charlotta, having atoned to her conscience for the destruction of
the green and yellow bowl by faithfully weeding the garden, a task
which she hated above all else, was singing a hymn among the sweet
peas, and her red braids were over her shoulders. This ought to have
warned Miss Corona, but Miss Corona was thinking of other things, and
kept on calling patiently, while Charlotta weeded away for dear life,
and seemed smitten with treble deafness.

After a time Miss Corona remembered and sighed. She did hate to call
the child that foolish name with its foreign sound. Just as if plain
"Charlotte" were not good enough for her, and much more suitable to
"Smith" too! Ordinarily Miss Corona would not have given in. But the
case was urgent; she could not stand upon her dignity just now.

"Charlotta!" she called entreatingly.

Instantly Charlotta flew t