“It is nonsense,” Captain Rheid growled, “when the house is all ready.”  But Will’s mother pleaded for him and gained an ungracious consent.

“You never run around after me so,” he said.

“Go to sea to-day and see what I will do,” she answered, and he kissed her for the first time in so many years that she blushed like a girl and hurried away to see if the tea-kettle were boiling.

Linnet’s mother was disappointed, for she wanted to see Linnet begin her pretty housekeeping; but Marjorie declared that it was as it should be and quite according to the Old Testament law of the husband cheering up his wife.

But Marjorie did not stay very long to make a picture of herself, she ran back to see if Morris had counted right in setting the plates on the long dining table that was covered with a heavy cloth of grandma’s own making.  There was a silk quilt of grandma’s making on the bed in the “spare room” beside.  As soon as the ceremony was performed she had run away with “the boys” to prepare the surprise for Linnet, a lunch in her own house.  The turkeys and tongue and ham had been cooked at Mrs. Rheid’s, and Linnet had seen only the cake and biscuits prepared at home, the fruit had come with Hollis from New York at Miss Prudence’s order, and the flowers had arrived this morning by train from Portland.  Cake and sandwiches, lemonade and coffee, would do very well, Linnet said, who had no thought of feasting, and the dining room at home was the only banqueting hall she had permitted herself to dream of.

Marjorie counted the chairs as Hollis brought them across the field from home, and then her eyes filled as he drew from his pocket, to show her, the deed of the house and ten acres of land, the wedding present from his father to the bride.

“Oh, he’s too good,” she cried.  “Linnet will break down, I know she will.”

“I asked him if he would be as good to my wife,” answered Hollis, “and he said he would, if I would please him as well as Will had done.”

“There’s only one Linnet,” said Marjorie.

“But bride’s have sisters,” said Morris.  “Marjorie, where shall I put all this jelly?  And I haven’t missed one plate with a bouquet, have I?  Now count everybody up again and see if we are all right.”

“Marjorie and I,” began Hollis, audaciously, pushing a chair into its place.

“Two,” counted Morris, but his blue eyes flashed and his lip trembled.

“And Will and Linnet, four,” began Marjorie, in needless haste, and father and mother, six, and Will’s father and mother, eight, and the minister and his wife, ten, and Herbert and his wife, twelve, and Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence, fourteen, and Sam and Harold, sixteen, and Morris, seventeen.  That is all.  Oh, and grandfather and grandmother, nineteen.”

“Seventeen plates!  You and I are to be waiters, Marjorie,” said Morris.

“I’ll be a waiter, too,” said Hollis.  “That will be best fun of all.  I’m glad you didn’t hire anybody, Marjorie.”