“That looks as if it was something against you, Katie.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so.  Besides, he wouldn’t have given his life at all; that’s only the way men talk, you know, when they want to make an impression of their earnestness on women and they always think they do it that way.  But the men that are the readiest to give up their lives don’t say anything about it beforehand.  Stephen would die for me, I’m sure, but he never told me so in his life.  He don’t make many protestations; he takes a great deal for granted.  Why shouldn’t he; we’ve known one another from babyhood?  But Master Harwin knew, somehow, the minute after he spoke, if he didn’t at the time, that he wouldn’t die for his fault at all, whatever it was.  And then, after he spoke it seemed to me as if he had changed his mind and didn’t care about it in any way, he only cared that I had refused him, and that he was not going to see me any more.  I am sorry for a man like that, and if he were going to stay here I should be afraid of him, afraid for Stephen.  But he sails in a few days.  I don’t wonder he couldn’t wait here for the next ship, wait over the wedding, and whatever danger from him there may have been sails with him.  Poor man, I don’t see what he liked me for.”  And with a sigh, Katie dismissed the thought of him and his grief and evil together, and turned her attention again to the wedding finery.

“Only see what exquisite lace,” she cried, throwing it out on the table to examine the web.  “Where did Elizabeth get it, I wonder?  She begged to be allowed to give me my bridal veil, and she has certainly done it handsomely, just as she always does everything, dear child.  I suppose it came out in one of her father’s ships.”

“Everything Master Royal touches turns into gold,” said Mrs. Archdale, after a critical examination of the lace had called forth her admiration.  “It’s Mechlin, Katie.  There is nobody in the Colonies richer than he,” she went on, “unless, possibly, the Colonel.”

“I dare say I ought to pretend not to care that Stephen will have ever so much money,” returned the girl, taking up a broad band of India muslin wrought with gold, and laying it over her sleeve to examine the pattern, at which she smiled approvingly.  “But then I do care.  Stephen is a great deal more interesting rich than he would be poor; he is not made for a grub, neither am I, and living is much better fun when one has laces like cobwebs, and velvets and paduasoys, and diamonds, mother, to fill one’s heart’s desire.”

As she spoke she looked an embodiment of fair youth and innocent pleasure, and her mother, with a mother’s admiration and sympathy in her heart, gave her a lingering glance before she put on a little sternness, and said, “My child, I don’t like to hear you talk in that light way.  Your heart’s desires, I trust, are set upon better things, those of another world.”

“Yes, mother, of course.  But, then you know, we are to give our mind faithfully to the things next to us, in order to get to those beyond them, and that’s what I am doing now, don’t you see?  O, mother, dear, how I shall miss you, and all your dear, solemn talks, and your dear, smiling looks.”  And winding her arms about her mother, Katie kissed her so affectionately that Mrs. Archdale felt quite sure that the laces and paduasoys had not yet spoilt her little daughter.