“Well, I thought she looked rather sober, but I don’t know as she looked any more so than girls usually do when they’re married.  I have seen them come to the parsonage looking more as if they were going to their own funerals than their weddings, they were so scared and quiet and sober.  Now Flora—­” The minister’s wife stopped short, she heard Mrs. Maxwell coming and she turned the conversation with a jolt of conscience into another channel.  “Yes, it is very dry,” said she effusively; “we need rain very much indeed.”

The little woman with the crimped hair colored very painfully.

Mrs. Maxwell made frequent errands into the room, and her daughter’s wedding had to be discussed guardedly.  Always after she went out, the women looked at each other in an agony of inquiry.

“Do you s’pose she knew?” they whispered.

Mrs. Field said nothing; she sat grimly quiet, knitting.  Lois looked silently out of the window.  Both of them knew that Mrs. Maxwell had not known of her daughter’s wedding.  Presently a man’s voice could be heard out in the kitchen.

“It’s Francis,” said Mrs. Lowe.  “I wonder if he knew?”

Lois started, and blushed softly, but nobody noticed her.

There was a deep silence in the parlor; the women were listening to the hum of voices in the kitchen.

“Don’t you think it’s dreadful close here?” said Mrs. Lowe.

“Yes, I think it is,” assented the minister’s wife.

“I think it would be a good plan to open the door a little ways,” said Mrs. Lowe, and she opened it cautiously.

Still they could distinguish nothing from the hum of voices out in the kitchen.

Mrs. Maxwell was in reality speaking low lest they should hear, although she was clutching her nephew’s arm hard, and the veins in her thin temples and her throat were swelling purple.  When he had entered she had sprung at him.  “Did you hear about it?  I want to know if you knew about it,” said she, grasping his arm with her wiry fingers, as if she were trying to wreak her anger on him.

“Knew about what?” said Francis wonderingly.  “What is the matter, Aunt Jane?”

“Did you know Flora went to the minister’s and got married this afternoon?”

“No,” said Francis slowly, “I didn’t; but I knew she would, well enough.”

“Did Flora tell you?”

“No, she didn’t tell me, but I knew she wouldn’t do anything else.”

“Knew she wouldn’t do anything else?  I’d like to know what you’re talkin’ about, Francis Arms.”

“I knew as long as she was Flora Maxwell, and her wedding was set for to-day three months ago, it wasn’t very likely that old Mr. Maxwell’s dying and not leaving her his money, and your not liking it, was going to stop her.”

“Hadn’t it ought to have stopped her?  Hadn’t the wishes of a mother that’s slaved for her all her life, and didn’t want her to get married without a silk gown to her back to a man that ain’t any prospects of being able to buy her any, ought to have stopped her, I’d like to know?”