delayed you
a little, and you must be there first. The train will be quicker than
driving, so that we shall be quite in time." She smiled as she caught
his swift glance of alarm at Rose. "No, I am not going to kidnap her; I
only wish to observe the proprieties a little--for her sake."

"If the proprieties have not been observed," retorted Peter, suddenly
bold, "it has not been ALL my fault, Miss Pennycuick." "Perhaps not,"
she said gently, for she was a generous woman--"perhaps not. At any
rate," holding out her hand, "we must let bygones be bygones now. Be
good to her--that is all I ask." Peter seized her hand in his superfine
glove, and wrung it emotionally, while Rose embraced her sister's left
arm and kissed her sleeve. Then, after a hurried consultation of
timetables, the bridegroom retired, and was presently seen to clatter
past the house in the bridal carriage, which had white horses to it, to
Deb's disgust.

She and Rose talked little on their journey. Rose was questioned about
clothes and pocket-money, and asked whether she had a safe pocket
anywhere. On Rose answering that she had, Deb pressed into it a closed
envelope, which she charged her sister not to open until away on her
honeymoon. Rose disobeyed the order, and found a hastily scrawled
cheque for one hundred pounds--money which she knew could ill be spared.

"Oh, you darling!" she murmured fondly. "But I won't take it, Deb--I
WON'T. It would leave you poor for years, while I shall have heaps of
everything--"

"If you don't," broke in Deb, tragically stern and determined--"if you
don't take it and buy your first clothes with it, I will never forgive
you as long as I live. Child, don't you see--?"

Rose saw this much--Deb's horror of the thought of being beholden to
the Breens for a post-nuptial trousseau. Reluctantly she pocketed the
gift.

"But I shall never want it, you know."

"I don't care about that," said Deb.

The bridegroom's relief of mind when he saw the bride coming was so
great as to do away with all the usual embarrassment of a man so
circumstanced.

"Ha! now we are all right," he said to Harry Simpson, cousin and best
man; and forthwith acted as if the trouble were over instead of just
beginning. There was nothing shoppy in his demeanour now, even to Deb's
prejudiced eye.

The sisters walked up the nave to the altar, hand in hand. Deb passed
the bridesmaid, Alice Urquhart, without a look--her people had brought
the young pair