w long it had been before she
found herself equal to the occasion.

"Yes--and then?"

"Then she said she was glad; that she wanted me to be happy. She told me
that she had always liked you and that the house wouldn't be so lonely
after you came to live with us. Then she asked me to bring you to see
her, as soon as you were ready to come."

The full tide overflowed in the girl's heart. She yearned toward Mrs.
Marsh with worship, adoration, love. The mother-hunger made her faint
with longing for a woman's arms around her, for a woman's tears of joy
to mingle with her own.

[Sidenote: Madame's Welcome]

"Take me to her," Rosemary pleaded. "Take me now!"

Madame saw them coming and went to the door to meet them. Rosemary was
not at all what she had fancied in the way of a daughter-in-law, but,
wisely, she determined to make the best of Alden's choice. Something in
her stirred in answer to the infinite appeal in the girl's eyes. At the
crowning moment of her life, Rosemary stood alone, fatherless,
motherless, friendless, with only brown alpaca to take the place of all
the pretty things that seem girlhood's right.

Madame smiled, then opened her arms. Without a word, Rosemary went to
her, laid her head upon the sweet, silken softness of the old lady's
shoulder, and began to cry softly.

"Daughter," whispered Madame, holding her close. "My dear daughter!
Please don't!"

Rosemary laughed through her tears, then wiped her eyes. "It's only an
April rain," she said. "I'm crying because I'm so happy."

"I wish," responded Madame, gently, with a glance at her son, "that I
might be sure all the tears either of you are ever to shed would be
tears of joy. It's the bitterness that hurts."

[Sidenote: Tears]

"Don't be pessimistic, Mother," said Alden, with a little break in his
voice. Rosemary's tears woke all his tenderness. He longed to shield and
shelter her; to stand, if he might, between her and the thousand pricks
and stabs of the world.

"We'll have tea," Madame went on, brightly, ringing a silver bell as she
spoke. "Then we shan't be quite so serious."

"Woman's inevitable solace," Alden observed, lounging about the room
with his hands in his pockets. Man-like, he welcomed the change of mood.

"I wonder," he continued, with forced cheerfulness, "why people always
cry at weddings and engagements and such things? A husband or wife is
the only relative we are permitted to choose--we even have very little
to say