“Ah, but he had your blood in him,” declared Calvin Gray heartily.

Thus, all about them, in many quarters, were the young pair affectionately discussed.  Not the least eloquent in their praise were the youngest members of the company.

“I say, but I’m proud of my new brother,” declared Ted Gray, the picture of youthful elegance, with every hair in place, and a white rose on the lapel of his short evening-jacket.  He was playing escort to the prettiest of his girl cousins.  “Isn’t he a stunner to-night?”

“He always was—­that is, since I’ve known him,” responded Esther, Uncle Philip’s daughter.  “I can’t help laughing when I think of the Christmas party last year, and how Rob made us all think he was a poor young man, and she didn’t like him at all.  All of us girls thought she was so queer not to want to dance with him, when he was so handsome and danced so beautifully.  I suppose she was just pretending she didn’t care for him.”

“Nobody ever’ll know when Rob did change her mind about him,” Ted assured her.  “She can make you think black’s green when she wants to.”

“Isn’t she perfectly wonderful to-night?” sighed the pretty cousin, with a glance from her own home-made frock—­in which, however, she looked like a freshly picked rose—­to Roberta’s bridal gown, shimmering through mistiness, simplicity itself, yet, as the little cousin well knew, the product of such art as she herself might never hope to command.  “I always thought she was perfectly beautiful, but she’s absolutely fascinating to-night.”

“Tell that to Rich.  I’m afraid he doesn’t appreciate her,” laughed Ted, indicating his new brother-in-law, who, at the moment being temporarily unemployed, was to be observed following his bride with his eyes with a wistful gaze indicating helplessness without her even for a fraction of time.

Roberta had been drawn a little away by her husband’s best man, who had something to tell her which he had reserved for this hour.

“Mrs. Kendrick,” he was beginning—­at which he was bidden to remember that he had known the girl Roberta for many years; and so began again, smiling with gratitude: 

“Roberta, have you any idea what is happening in Eastman to-night?”

“Indeed I haven’t, Hugh.  Anything I ought to know of?”

“I think it’s time you did.  Every employee in our store is sitting down to a great dinner, served by a caterer from this city, with a Christmas favour at every plate.  The place cards have a K and G on them in monogram.  There are such flowers for decorations as most of those people never saw.  I don’t need to tell you whose doing this is.”

He had the reward he had anticipated for the telling of this news—­Roberta’s cheek coloured richly, and her eyes fell for a moment to hide the surprise and happiness in them.

“That may seem like enough,” he went on gently, “but it wasn’t enough for him.  At every children’s hospital in this city, and in every children’s ward, there is a Christmas tree to-night, loaded with gifts.  And I want you to know that, busy as he has been until to-day, he picked out every gift himself, and wrote the name on the card with his own hand.”