t come to her home and taken her with my
permission.'"

"What!" I stammered. "What! Oh Laddie, say it over! Does it
mean----?"

"It means," said Laddie, squeezing me until I was near losing my
breath, "it means, Little Sister, that I shall march to his door and
ask him squarely, and if it is anywhere the Princess wants to go, I
shall take her."

"Like, 'See the conquering hero comes?'"

"Exactly!" laughed Laddie.

"What will mother say?"

"She hasn't made up her mind yet," answered Laddie.

"Do you mean----?" I gasped again.

"Of course!" said Laddie. "I wasn't going to let a girl get far ahead
of me. The minute I knew she had told her mother, I told mine the very
first chance."

"Mother knows that you feel about the Princess as father does about
her?"

"Mother knows," answered Laddie, "and so does father. I told both of
them."

Both of them knew! And it hadn't made enough difference that any one
living right with them every day could have told it. Time and work
will be needed to understand grown people.

CHAPTER VIII

The Shropshire and the Crusader

"For, among the rich and gay,
Fine, and grand, and decked in laces,
None appear more glad then they,
With happier hearts, or happier faces."

Every one told mother for a week before the wedding that she would be
sick when it was over, and sure enough she was. She had been on her
feet too much, and had so many things to think about, and there had
been such a dreadful amount of work for her and Candace, even after all
the neighbours helped, that she was sick in bed and we couldn't find a
thing she could eat, until she was almost wild with hunger and father
seemed as if he couldn't possibly bear it a day longer.

After Candace had tried everything she could think of, I went up and
talked it over with Sarah Hood, and she came down, pretending she
happened in, and she tried thickened milk, toast and mulled buttermilk;
she kept trying for two days before she gave up. Candace thought of
new things, and Mrs. Freshett came and made all the sick dishes she
knew, but mother couldn't even taste them; so we were pretty blue, and
we nearly starved ourselves, for how could we sit and eat everything
you could mention, and mother lying there, almost crying with hunger?

Saturday morning I was hanging around her room hoping maybe she could
think of some least little thing I could do for her, even if no more
than to bring a glass of wat