mptness, and phrased it in unanswerable
rebuke.

"How common you are, Eva!" she said quite scornfully. "A sack of beans!
One would know your father kept a country store."

Eva Saint Clair Andrews felt herself justified in the retort
discourteous.

"It is better to keep a country store than it is to hoe your own
potatoes, barefoot," she responded tartly. "Besides, what about Scott
Brenton's father?"

Then, catching sight, by way of the mirror, of Catia's irate
countenance, she stayed her speech. Already, she well realized, her
bridesmaid's robes were in the extreme of jeopardy. Unsatisfactory as
it was going to be to take the second place at Scott Brenton's wedding,
it would be far more unsatisfactory to take the twenty-second, and
watch the ceremony from one of the rear pews of the church, instead of
from the front aisle which answers architecturally to the functions of
the chancel. Besides, there was going to be a visiting minister extra,
a rector who was a classmate of Scott Brenton and therefore rather
young. And no one ever knew. Accordingly, Eva Saint Clair Andrews,
called usually by the whole of her name, even in intimate address,
stayed her speech and, after a fashion, temporized.

"Of course," she added, with a hasty giggle; "a minister like Scott is
more used to weddings than we girls are."

Turning from the mirror, Catia spoke with a dignity which was crushing.

"But not to his own," she informed her guest.

And Eva Saint Clair Andrews gave up the effort to extricate herself
from disgrace. Instead, she fell upon discussion of the wedding plans.

"How many do you expect at the reception, Catia?" she made query, with
an accent which discretion had suddenly rendered exceedingly full of
respect.

"Oh, I can't stop to count them up," Catia replied, with magnificent
carelessness. "I've asked about everybody in town, of course. Mother
would have insisted on it, anyway; and, besides, Scott's position would
make us do it, even if he were the only one to count."

Eva Saint Clair Andrews opened her blue eyes a little wider than was
quite becoming.

"I didn't suppose the Brentons were----" she was beginning.

But Catia interrupted, with a fresh access of magnificence.

"Not the Brentons, Eva," Catia had only lately forbidden herself the
village use of the full name, and her sudden recollection of the fact
caused her to speak with nippy brevity; "not the Brentons, but just
Scott himself. Of course, we owe