shall miss you dreadfully, Audrey. No one will ever
take your place; but I shall feel as though I were helping you somehow.'

'Yes, and then you will pay me long visits, Mollie; and, of course,
Michael will often bring me to see mother.'

And this charming prospect, and the promise that she should be Audrey's
bridesmaid, speedily consoled Mollie.

Michael had stipulated that their honeymoon should be spent in Scotland,
and to Audrey's amusement Braemar was the place he finally selected,
and he would have the very cottage, or rather cottages, that Dr. Ross
had taken for his family.

'We can shut up some of the rooms and only use as many as we want,' he
said, when Mrs. Ross had complained of the roominess. 'We are rich
people, and can afford it; and as Crauford is to be Audrey's maid, she
can come with us and see that things are comfortable. Do you remember
that sitting-room, Audrey, and the horse-hair sofa, and the
rowan-berries and heather in the big china jars? By the bye, you must
have a gray tweed dress and a deerstalker cap, and look as you used to
look; and there is the little bridge where Gage and I used to meet you
all when you had had a day's outing on the moors. Shall you not love to
go there again, Audrey?

And in answer Audrey said 'Yes' rather demurely.

But she was not demure at all when two months afterwards she sat on the
little bridge in the sunset, watching the very same ducks dibble with
their yellow bills in the brook that trickled so musically over the
stones, while Michael stood beside her, lazily throwing in pebbles for
Booty's amusement; on the contrary, she was laughing and talking with a
great deal of animation, and, strange to say, she wore the gray tweed,
and the deerstalker cap was on her bright brown hair.

'We have had such a delicious day!' she was saying. 'I think there is
nothing, after all, like a Scotch moor. Do look at those ducks, Michael;
how angry they are with Booty, and how ridiculous they look waddling
over those wet stones!'

'I was thinking of something else,' he replied; and his tone made Audrey
look up rather quickly. 'Do you remember your tirade on the subject of
single blessedness, my Lady Bountiful, and how freedom outbalanced all
the delights of wedded bliss? I recollect we were on the moors then, and
Kester was with us, and I took out my pocket-book and wrote down the
date. Well, I will be magnanimous and not ask an awkward question. Six
weeks of married life i