day it was no surprise at all, when you told
me; it was like looking up and seeing all the real stars in the sky.
Afterwards it was dreadful for a little while, wasn't it?" Karen held
his hand for a moment to her cheek.

When all the past had been looked at together, Gregory asked her if she
would not marry him quite soon; he hoped, indeed, that it might be
within the month. "You see, why not?" he said. "I miss you so dreadfully
and I can't be here; and why should you be? Let me come down and marry
you in that nice little church on the other side of the village as soon
as our banns can be called."

But, for the first time, a slight anxiety showed in her eyes. "I miss
you dreadfully, too," she said. "But you forget, Tante will not be back
till July. We must wait for Tante, Gregory. We are in May now, it is not
so far to July. You will not mind too much?"

He felt, sitting under the arch of blessings as he was, that it would be
most ungrateful and inappropriate to mind. But then, he said, if they
must put it off like that, Karen would have to come to London. She must
come and stay with Betty. "And get your trousseau"; this was a brilliant
idea. "You'll have to get your trousseau, you know, and Betty is an
authority on clothes."

"Oh, but clothes. I never have clothes in that sense," said Karen. "A
little seamstress down here makes most of them and Louise helps her
sometimes if she has time. Tante gave me twenty pounds before she went
away; would twenty pounds do for a trousseau?"

"Betty would think twenty pounds just about enough for your gloves and
stockings, I imagine," said Gregory.

"And will you expect me to be so luxurious? You are not rich? We shall
not live richly?"

"I'm not at all rich; but I want you to have pretty things--layers and
layers of the nice, white, soft things brides always have, and a great
many new hats and dresses. Couldn't I give you a little tip--to begin
the trousseau?"

"Ah, it can wait, can't it?" said Karen easily. "No; you can't give me a
tip. Tante, I am sure, will see that I have a nice trousseau. She may
even give me a little _dot_ when I marry. I have no money at all; not
one penny, you know. Do you mind?"

"I'd far rather have you without a penny because I want to give you
everything. If Tante doesn't give you the little _dot_, I shall."

Karen was pondering a little seriously. "I don't know what Tante will
feel since you have enough for us both. It was when she wished me