I went down the aisle I
wasn't conscious of empty pews. The glorious organ music filled it,
clear to the vaulted ceiling. And although Phil had teased me about not
wanting to wear an ordinary travelling dress and hat, he had to
acknowledge afterward that he was glad I chose to come to him all in
white and in a filmy tulle veil. And he said some dear things about the
way I looked, that were as sweet to me as the rose leaves I have
scattered among the folds of my wedding gown's white loveliness. I have
not put what he said into these pages for the girl to find a century
from now. For fashions change so curiously that maybe she would smile
and say how very queer my old-time garments are, and wonder how any man
could have made a pretty speech about them.

"Phil proved he had some sentiment about such things himself, for soon
after he bought me a real 'Ginevra' chest, all beautifully carved, with
my name engraved on the brass plate on the lid: _'Mary Ware Tremont_.'

"Not until we were aboard the train, and he showed me our tickets
marked Lloydsboro Valley, did I know that we were bound for Kentucky,
instead of the far West, and not until we were almost there did he
spring his grand surprise, although he was nearly choking with
impatience to tell. Of course I hadn't expected that we would set up
much of an establishment. I supposed that wherever we went we would rent
a modest little cottage, probably in the suburbs. I knew that Phil
couldn't afford much. He never began to save anything at all until two
years ago. He confessed when he first came back from Mexico that it was
a lecture of mine about providing a financial umbrella for a possible
rainy day which started him to doing it, and that as expenses were light
in the construction camp, and his pay very large, he had put by enough
to take us through almost anything, short of a cloudburst. But that was
an emergency fund, of course, and not to be invested in houses and
lands.

"He never told me that the tangle about his Great-aunt Patricia's
holdings in England, whatever that may be, had been straightened out at
last, and that his share, paid to him recently, was over five thousand
pounds.

"That was the first part of the surprise. The second was that he had
_bought_ (mark that word, whoever you are, oh, little maiden of the
far-off future, if you ever come across this record of happiness)--he
had bought a home in Lloydsboro Valley. He had the deed in his pocket,
and h