aid, "Yes, sir;" but she took the words into her heart
and found herself repeating them a hundred times a day.

Tris came home just before Easter. The spring was in his heart, the
spring was in his life and love. The winds, the young trees, the
peeping crocus-buds, were part and parcel of Denas and of his hopes in
her. What charming walks they took to their home! What suggestions and
improvements and alterations they made! No two young thrushes,
building their first nest, could have been more interested and more
important. Mr. and Mrs. Arundel had remained in town for the Easter
holidays, and Tris was very nearly lord of all his time. He rather
thought Mr. Arundel had purposely left him so at this happy epoch, and
the idea gave him the more pleasure in his light duties.

There was a great deal of good-natured discussion about the proper
date for this wonderful wedding. Tris acted as if it was the first
wedding in the world. He was sure everyone in St. Penfer and St. Clair
would be disappointed beyond comfort unless they had a chance to be
present. He thought, therefore, that Easter Sunday would be the day of
days in this respect. All the boats would be in harbour. All the women
and children would have their new gowns and bonnets on. There would be
a special service in the chapel--and then, finally:

"The house be ready, mother, and I be ready, and Denas be ready, and
what are we waiting for?"

And as John, and Joan, and Tris were of one mind, what could Denas do
but be of the same mind? After all, the great anxiety was the
weather. The restless way in which Tris queried of the winds and
watched the clouds almost made John angry. "You do be enough to beckon
a storm, Tris," he cried. "Let be! Let be!" Yet for all that John
himself walked oftener to his door than was his custom, and looked
seaward and windward in a furtive kind of way, very amusing to the
women, who saw clearly through his anxiety.

But even the weather sometimes comes up to our hopes and is even
better than our expectations. Easter Sunday broke in a royal mood of
sunshine. There was not a breath of wind; the sea was like a sea of
sapphire sprinked with incalculable diamonds; the boats lay lazily
swinging on the tide-top; the undercliff was in its Easter green and
white. The lark set the bride-song going, and so woke up the thrush,
and the thrush called to the blackbird, and the woods soon rang with
music.

The ceremony was to be in the St. Clair ch