octor Elder to get you safely married."

He stooped to kiss her, and Charlotte held him close for an instant. But
he made the brotherly embrace a short one, comprehending that much of
that sort of thing would be unsafe both for Charlotte and her family,
and went gaily away to the house next door.

"Nerve good?" Lanse asked Doctor Churchill, an hour later as they waited
in the vestry for the summons of the organ.

Doctor Churchill smiled. "Pretty steady," he answered. "Still--I'm aware
something is about to happen."

Lanse eyed him affectionately.

"Do you know it's a good deal to me to be gaining three brothers by this
day's work?" the doctor added; and Lanse felt a sudden lump in his
throat, which he had to swallow before he could answer:

"I assure you we're feeling pretty rich, to-day, too, old fellow."

It was all over presently--a very simple, natural sort of affair, with
the warm October sunlight streaming through the richly coloured windows
upon the figures at the altar, touching Celia's bright hair into a halo,
and sending a ruby beam across the trailing folds of Charlotte's bridal
gown.

There was no display of any sort. The whole effect was somehow that of a
girl being married in the enclosing circle of her family, without
thought of the hundreds of eyes upon her. A quiet wedding breakfast
followed, at which Doctor Forester and his son, the latter lately
returned from a long period of study abroad, were the only guests.
Doctor Churchill's housekeeper, Mrs. Fields, although invited to be
present as a guest insisted on remaining in the kitchen.

"Just as if," she said, when everybody in turn remonstrated with her,
"when I've looked after that boy's food from the days when he ate
nothing but porridge and milk, I was going to let anybody else feed him
with his wedding breakfast!"

But this part of the business of getting married was also soon over.
Doctor Churchill was to take his bride away for a month's stay in a
little Southern resort among the mountains, dear to him by old
association. It was the first vacation he had allowed himself during
these four years of his practice, and his eyes had been sparkling as he
planned it. They were sparkling again now, as he stood waiting for
Charlotte to say good-bye and come away with him, but his face spoke his
sympathetic understanding of those who were finding this the hardest
moment which had yet come to them.

"Take care of her, Andy," was what, in almost