“Oh, I’m not disgusted.  It’s your wedding.  I want you to have everything in your own way.”

“It’s everybody’s wedding, I think,” said Katy, tenderly.  “Everybody is so kind about it.  Did you see the thing that Polly sent this morning?”

“No.  It must have come after I went out.  What was it?”

“Seven yards of beautiful nun’s lace which she bought in Florence.  She says it is to trim a morning dress; but it’s really too pretty.  How dear Polly is!  She sends me something almost every day.  I seem to be in her thoughts all the time.  It is because she loves Ned so much, of course; but it is just as kind of her.”

“I think she loves you almost as much as Ned,” said Clover.

“Oh, she couldn’t do that; Ned is her only brother.  There is Amy at the gate now.”

It was a much taller Amy than had come home from Italy the year before who was walking toward them under the budding locust-boughs.  Roman fever had seemed to quicken and stimulate all Amy’s powers, and she had grown very fast during the past year.  Her face was as frank and childlike as ever, and her eyes as blue; but she was prettier than when she went to Europe, for her cheeks were pink, and the mane of waving hair which framed them in was very becoming.  The hair was just long enough now to touch her shoulders; it was turning brown as it lengthened, but the ends of the locks still shone with childish gold, and caught the sun in little shining rings as it filtered down through the tree branches.

She kissed Clover several times, and gave Katy a long, close hug; then she produced a parcel daintily hid in silver paper.

“Tanta,” she said,—­this was a pet name lately invented for Katy,—­“here is something for you from mamma.  It’s something quite particular, I think, for mamma cried when she was writing the note; not a hard cry, you know, but just two little teeny-weeny tears in her eyes.  She kept smiling, though, and she looked happy, so I guess it isn’t anything very bad.  She said I was to give it to you with her best, best love.”

Katy opened the parcel, and beheld a square veil of beautiful old blonde.  The note said: 

This was my wedding-veil, dearest Katy, and my mother wore it before me.  It has been laid aside all these years with the idea that perhaps Amy might want it some day; but instead I send it to you, without whom there would be no Amy to wear this or anything else.  I think it would please Ned to see it on your head, and I know it would make me very happy; but if you don’t feel like using it, don’t mind for a moment saying so to

    Your loving
                              Polly.

[Illustration:  “Katy opened the parcel, and beheld a square veil of beautiful old blonde.”]

Katy handed the note silently to Clover, and laid her face for a little while among the soft folds of the lace, about which a faint odor of roses hung like the breath of old-time and unforgotten loves and affections.