em the day before and have them in water.

By early afternoon all was in readiness and the girls were resting.
Miss Gertrude had not been allowed to help but had stayed quietly in
her room.

The wedding was at half past four, and at that hour the little church,
which looked perfectly lovely in the opinion of the decorators, was
pleasantly filled with murmuring groups of Rosemont people, who agreed
that the feathery decorations proved yet another plume in the caps of
the Club members, and of New York people who gazed at the modest
country chapel and found it charming.

There was a happy _brrrr_ of pleasant comment while the organ played
softly. Roger and James were two of the ushers. Friends of Edward's,
young doctors, were the other two.

As the organ broke into the Lohengrin march and Edward, with Tom for
his best man, appeared at the chancel, Gertrude came down the aisle
from the other end of the church. She wore a simple white trailing
dress of soft silk, clasped at the breast with the ancient
brilliant-framed miniature of another Gertrude Merriam. A pearl
pendant, a gift from Ayleesabet, hung from her neck. On her ungloved
right hand the older Gertrude Merriam's ring blazed beside Edward's
more modest offering.

The Ethels held each others' hands as they stood behind the bride,
wreaths of Queen Anne's Lace over their arms, and a delicate blossom or
two tucked under a pale blue ribbon in each filmy white hat. It seemed
but a moment to them and it was all over and Miss Gertrude was no
longer "Miss Gertrude" but "Mrs. Edward." The doctor seemed to have
put on new dignity and the girls found themselves wondering if they
should ever call him "Edward" again.

Gertrude swept by them with her eyes full of happiness, but when she
reached the back of the church she gave a lovely smile to the women and
children of Rose House seated in the last pews.

"I want every one to see my lovely presents," Miss Gertrude had said,
so the guests exclaimed over the pretty things grouped in the library.

It was all simple and happy, and a bit of pathos at the end of the
afternoon brought no depression. Gertrude was just about to go
upstairs to change her dress and she stood with her maids and ushers,
around her, exchanging a laughing word or two with them, when a little
procession made its way toward her from the dining-room. It consisted
of all the women and children from Rose House, dressed in the fresh
clothes which the