following her sister
in her bridesmaid's attire of filmy white over rose, with pink roses
in her hair.

Anderson stood where he could see the faces of the bridal party quite
plainly in the glare of the electric light. Charlotte, he saw, with
emotion, had an awed, intensely sober expression on her charming
face, but the bride's, set in the white mist of her thrown-back veil,
was smiling lightly. He saw Arms bend over and whisper to her, and
she laughed outright with girlish gayety. Anderson wondered what he
said. Arms had smiled, yet his face was evidently moved. What he had
said was simple enough: "Fighting Indians is nothing to getting
married, honey."

Ina laughed, but her husband's lips quivered a little. She herself
realized a curious self-possession greater than she had ever realized
in her whole life. It is possible that the world is so old and so
many women have married in it that a heredity of self-control
supports them in the midst of an occasion which has quickened their
pulses in anticipation during their whole lives. But the bridegroom
was not so supported. He was manifestly agitated and nervous,
especially during the reception which followed the ceremony. He stood
with forced amiability responding to the stilted congratulations and
gazing with wondering admiration at his bride, whose manner was the
perfection of grace.

"Lord, old man!" he whispered once to Carroll, "this part of it is a
farce for an old fellow like me, standing in a blooming bower, being
patted on the head like a little poodle-dog."

Carroll laughed.

"She likes it, now," whispered Arms, with a fond, proud glance at Ina.

"Women all do," responded Carroll.

"Well, I'd stand here a week if she wanted to, bless her," Arms
whispered back, and turned with a successful grimace to acknowledge
Mrs. Van Dorn's carefully worded congratulations. As she turned away
she met Carroll's eyes, and a burning blush overspread her face to
her pompadour crest surmounting her large, middle-aged face. She
suddenly recalled, with painful acuteness, the only other occasion on
which she had been in the house; but Carroll's manner was perfect,
there was in his eyes no recollection whatever.

Mrs. Carroll was lovely in pale-mauve crape embroidered with violets,
a relic of past splendors, remodelled for the occasion in spite of
doubts on her part, and her beautiful old amethysts. Anna had urged
it.

"I shall wear my cream lace, which no one here has ever