desert, where there were only owls and
jack-rabbits to see it, would insist on veils and trails and things at a
time like this. He wouldn't wait for the filling of a dower chest. She
could do that afterward; but he was finally induced to wait for the
other things, when Mrs. Blythe was brought into the discussion and
pronounced them actually necessary.

He went back to Louisville without telling Mary of his arrangement with
Mr. Sherman which had changed all his plans. The home he had written so
much about would be ready for her, but it would not be in the far West,
as she expected. He could hardly wait for the day to come when he could
witness her delight over the tremendous surprise which he had in store
for her.

It was not many weeks before he had the pleasure of telling her, but it
was over two months before she made a record of it in her diary. Then
she wrote:

"There is room for just one more chapter in my Good Times book, and when
that is finished it is to be laid away in the chest with my wedding
gown and bridal roses. Maybe, a hundred years from now, some young girl
rummaging through the attic may find my beautiful dress all yellowed
with time, and the rose leaves dried and scentless. But I am sure my
happiness will call to her from these pages like a living voice as young
as hers.

"And when she sees how this record is blistered with tears in places,
and reads how Disappointment and Duty and even Death rose up to 'close
all the roads of all the world' to me, then she'll take 'heart of grace'
if she is in any desert of waiting herself. For she'll see how true it
is that Love's road is always open, and that if we only keep inflexible
it will finally lead to the land of our desire. For here I am at last in
Lloydsboro Valley.

"It has been more than two months since Phil and I were married at Saint
Mark's Cathedral in Riverville, but I have been too busy to write the
chronicles of that important affair. No one was there but Mr. and Mrs.
Dudley Blythe. Dear old Bishop Chartley came down for the ceremony. His
warm friendship with Mrs. Blythe made that arrangement possible. It was
late in the afternoon, and the great stained-glass windows made it seem
like twilight, and down the long dim aisles the altar candles gleamed
like stars.

"I had thought at first that the vast place would seem empty and
lonesome, and that it would be queer not to have the pews filled with
friendly faces at a time like that. But when