d her being, and to wish that his might have
been like unto it.

It was now time to return home, and they started back. Tilly hung
lovingly on his arm. "We sha'n't quarrel about your mother," she said,
soothingly. "I shall win her love if I can, and if I can't it won't be
my fault. I am a plain, home-loving person, though, and she may not take
to me at all. I'd like to help that little girl Dora, too. You say she
can't read or write. I could teach her."

Here John's interest was roused. He bent toward Tilly's upturned face.
"That would be nice," he said. "The poor little rat needs something of
the sort. Yes, we must, between us, do something for that kid. She has
the making of a fine woman in her."

CHAPTER XXI

The court-house was finished, even to the last touches of putting on the
brass locks and window-fastenings. The commissioners formerly accepted
the building as meeting with all the contracted requirements, and a
large check was handed to Cavanaugh by the Ordinary of the county.

Cavanaugh was in high feather for several reasons, the main one being
that the whole affair was to be capped by a wedding at the farm-house.
Cavanaugh had been expecting his wife to come up, but had a letter
saying that she was actually in bed with rheumatism and unable to make
the journey.

Only the most intimate friends and relatives of the family were invited,
and on the evening of the wedding they began to arrive shortly after
sunset in buggies, wagons, and on horseback. Cavanaugh, who had dubbed
himself as "the best man," was the busiest person about the house. He
met all the guests, showed them where to put their horses and where to
sit in the parlor, which was filled with a motley collection of borrowed
chairs from cherry-colored rockers of the latest tawdry design to
straight-backed, unpainted relics of Cherokee days with concave,
split-oak or rawhide bottoms.

With his usual stinginess and contempt of show, Whaley had allowed his
daughter little for her trousseau, and her apparel was most simple, and
so scant that her small trunk was scarcely filled. As they were to take
a train immediately after the wedding supper, she wore a plain
traveling-dress of dark gray which made her look as demure as a young
Quakeress. As for John, he had considered his new suit as good enough
and under Cavanaugh's advice had not bought another.

"I'll tell you one thing you've got to do," Cavanaugh said to him as he
was tying John's