jie explained. We sat in the moonlight by the locust-tree just as
Rachel and I had done; only now Topeka and the tree and the silvery
prairie and the black-shadowed Shunganunga Creek, winding down toward
the Kaw through many devious turns, all seemed a fairy land which the
moonbeams touched and glorified for us two. I can never think of Topeka,
even to-day, with its broad avenues and beautiful shaded parks and paved
ways, its handsome homes and churches and colleges, with all these to
make it a proud young city--I can never think of it and leave out that
sturdy young locust, grown now to a handsome tree. And when I think of
it I do not think of the beautiful black-haired Eastern girl, with her
rich dress and aristocratic manner. But always that sweet-faced,
brown-eyed Kansas girl is with me there. And the open prairie dipping
down to the creek, and the purple tip of Burnett's Mound, make a setting
for the picture.

* * * * *

One October day when the wooded valley of the Neosho was in its autumn
glory, when the creeping vines on the gray stone bluff were aflame with
the frost's rich scarlet painting, and the west prairies were all one
shimmering sea of gold flecked with emerald and purple; while above all
these curved the wide magnificent skies of Kansas, unclouded,
fathomless, and tenderly blue; when the peace of God was in the air and
his benediction of love was on all the land,--on such a day as this, the
clear-toned old Presbyterian Church bell rang the wedding chimes for
Marjory Whately and Philip Baronet. Loving hands had made the church a
bower of autumn coloring with the dainty relief of pink and white asters
against the bronze richness of the season. Bess Anderson played the
wedding march, as we two came up the aisle together and met Dr.
Hemingway at the chancel rail. I was in my young manhood's zenith, and I
walked the earth like a king. Marjie wore my mother's wedding veil. Her
white gown was soft and filmy, a fabric of her mother's own choosing,
and her brown wavy hair was crowned with orange blossoms.

Springvale talked of that wedding for many a moon, for there was not a
feature of the whole beautiful service, even to the very least
appointment, that was not perfect in its simplicity and harmonious in
its blending with everything about it.

Among the guests in the Baronet home, where everybody came to wish us
happiness, was my father's friend and my own hero, Morton of the