up the aisle in bridal lace.  Under the gallery, not far from Mr. Pincornet, sat Adam Gaudylock, easy and tawny, dressed as usual in his fringed hunting-frock, with his coonskin cap in his hand, and his gun at his feet.  Beside him sat Vinie Mocket, dressed in her best.  Vinie’s eyes were downcast, and her hands clasped in her lap.  She wondered—­poor little partridge!—­why she was there, why she had been so foolish as to let Mr Adam persuade her into coming Vinie was afraid she was going to cry.  Yet not for worlds would she have left Saint Margaret’s; she wanted, with painful curiosity, to see the figure in bridal lace She wondered where Tom was Tom was to have joined Mr. Adam and herself an hour ago The bell began to ring, and all the gathering rustled loudly.  “She’s coming—­she’s coming?” whispered Vinie, and Adam, “Why, of course, of course, little partridge.  Now don’t you cry—­you’ll be walking up Saint Margaret’s aisle yourself some day!”

The bell ceased to ring.  Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood beside the chancel rail.  A sound at the door, a universal turning as though the wind bent every flower in a garden—­and Jacqueline Churchill came up the aisle between the coloured lines.  Her hand was upon the arm of her father’s schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed her.  Rand met her at the altar, and the old clergyman who had baptized her married them.  It was over, from the “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together,” to the “Until Death shall them part!” Lewis and Jacqueline Rand wrote their names in the register, then turned to receive the congratulations of those who crowded around them, to smile, and say the expected thing.  Rand stooped and kissed Deb, wrung Mrs. Selden’s hand, then held out his own to Unity with something of appeal in his gesture and his eyes.  Miss Dandridge promptly laid her hand in his, and looked at him with her frank and brilliant gaze.  “Now that we are cousins,” she said, “I do not find you a monster at all.  Make her happy, and one day we’ll all be friends.”  “I will—­I will!” answered Rand, with emotion, pressed her hand warmly, and was claimed by others of his wedding guests.  Jacqueline, too, had clung at first to Unity and Deb and Cousin Jane Selden, but now she also turned from the old life to the new, and greeted with a smiling face the people of her husband’s party.  Many, of course, she knew; only a difference of opinion stood between them and the Churchills; but others were strangers to her—­strangers and curious.  She felt it in the touch of their hands, in the stare of their eyes, and her heart was vaguely troubled.  She saw her old dancing master, tiptoeing on the edge of the throng, and her smile brought Mr. Pincornet, his green velvet and powdered wig, to her side.  He put his hand to his heart and bowed as to a princess.

“Ha!  Mr. Pincornet,” exclaimed Rand, “I remember our night at Monticello.  Now I have a teacher who will be with me always!—­Jacqueline, I want you to speak to my old friend, Adam Gaudylock.”