e Lawrence was coming home to
marry Uncle Dick. Uncle Dick was much teased, and suffered under it;
it seemed, as he had said, desecration. But the real goodwill and
kindly feeling in the banter redeemed it.

He went to the station to meet Rose Lawrence the day she came. When I
went home from school Mrs. Lindsay told me she was in the parlour and
took me in to be introduced. I was bitterly disappointed. Somehow, I
had expected to meet, not indeed a young girl palpitating with
youthful bloom, but a woman of ripe maturity, dowered with the beauty
of harmonious middle-age--the feminine counterpart of Uncle Dick.
Instead, I found in Rose Lawrence a small, faded woman of forty-five,
gowned in shabby black. She had evidently been very pretty once, but
bloom and grace were gone. Her face had a sweet and gentle expression,
but was tired and worn, and her fair hair was plentifully streaked
with grey. Alas, I thought compassionately, for Uncle Dick's dreams!
What a shock the change to her must have given him! Could this be the
woman on whom he had lavished such a life-wealth of love and
reverence? I tried to talk to her, but I found her shy and timid. She
seemed to me uninteresting and commonplace. And this was Uncle Dick's
Rose of joy!

I was so sorry for Uncle Dick that I shrank from meeting him.
Nevertheless, I went over after tea, fearing that he might
misunderstand, nay, rather, understand, my absence. He was in the
garden, and he came down the path where the buds were just showing.
There was a smile on his face and the glory in his eyes was quite
undimmed.

"Master, she's come. And she's not a bit changed. I feared she would
be, but she is just the same--my sweet little Rose of joy!"

I looked at Uncle Dick in some amazement. He was thoroughly sincere,
there was no doubt of that, and I felt a great throb of relief. He had
found no disillusioning change. I saw Rose Lawrence merely with the
cold eyes of the stranger. He saw her through the transfiguring medium
of a love that made her truly his Rose of joy. And all was well.

They were married the next morning and walked together over the clover
meadow to their home. In the evening I went over, as I had promised
Uncle Dick to do. They were in the garden, with a great saffron sky
over them and a glory of sunset behind the poplars. I paused unseen at
the gate. Uncle Dick was big and splendid in his fine new wedding
suit, and his faded little bride was hanging on his arm. He