an?"

"Mary has been telling me how far ahead of me your thoughts have flown.
You're taking up all the new questions, and you're a successful woman
of business. I have envied you ever since I heard about the wedding
cake."

"It's a good business," said Cousin Patty, "and I can do it at home. I
couldn't have gone out in the world to make my fight for a living. I
can defy men in theory; but I'm really Southern and feminine--if you
know what that means," she laughed happily. "Of course I never let
them know it, not even Roger."

And now Mary came in, lovely in her white dinner gown.

"Oh," she accused them, "you aren't ready."

Cousin Patty rose. "I wanted to know what to wear, and we've talked an
hour, and haven't said a word about it."

"Don't bother," Mary said; "there'll be just four of us."

"But I want to bother. Roger helped me to plan my things. He
remembered every single dress you wore while he was here."

"Really?" The look which Roger had loved was creeping into Mary's
clear eyes. "Really, Cousin Patty?"

"Yes. He drew a sketch of your velvet wrap with the fur, and I made
mine like it, only I put a frill in place of the fur." She trotted
into her room and brought it back for Mary's inspection. "Is it all
right?" she asked, anxiously, as she slipped it on, and craned her neck
in front of Aunt Isabelle's long mirror to see the sweep of the folds.

"It is perfect; and to think he should remember."

Cousin Patty gave her a swift glance. "That isn't all he has
remembered," she said, succinctly.

It developed when they went down for dinner that Roger had ordered a
box of flowers for them--purple violets for Aunt Isabelle and Cousin
Patty, white violets for Mary.

"How lovely," Mary said, bending over the box of sweetness. "I am
perfectly sure no one ever sent me white violets before."

There were other flowers--orchids from Porter.

"And now--which will you wear?" demanded sprightly Cousin Patty, an
undercurrent of anxiety in her tone.

Mary wore the violets, and Porter gloomed all through the play.

"So my orchids weren't good enough," he said, as she sat beside him on
their way to the hotel where they were to have supper.

"They were lovely, Porter."

"But you liked the violets better? Who sent them, Mary?"

"Don't ask in that tone."

"You don't want to tell me."

"It isn't that--it's your manner." She broke off to say pleadingly,
"Don't let us quarrel over it. Let me for