Aunt Isabelle stumbled forward.  “My dear,” she asked, in her thin troubled voice, “what makes you cry?”

“It’s nothing, Aunt Isabelle.”  Mary’s tone was not loud, but Aunt Isabelle heard and nodded.

“She’s dead tired, poor dear, and wrought up.  I’ll run and get the aromatic spirits.”

With Aunt Isabella out of the way, Mary set herself to repair the damage she had done.  “I’ve made you cry on your wedding day, Con, and I wanted you to be so happy.  Oh, tell Gordon, if you must.  But you’ll find that he won’t look at it as you and I have looked at it.  He won’t make the excuses.”

“Oh, yes he will.”  Constance’s happiness seemed to come back to her suddenly in a flood of assurance.  “He’s the best man in the world, Mary, and so kind.  It’s because you don’t know him that you think as you do.”

Mary could not quench the trust in the blue eyes.  “Of course he’s good,” she said, “and you are going to be the happiest ever, Constance.”

Then Aunt Isabelle came back and found that the need for the aromatic spirits was over, and together the loving hands hurried Constance into her going away gown of dull blue and silver, with its sable trimmed wrap and hat.

“If it hadn’t been for Aunt Frances, how could I have faced Gordon’s friends in London?” said Constance.  “Am I all right now, Mary?”

“Lovely, Con, dear.”

But it was Aunt Isabelle’s hushed voice which gave the appropriate phrase.  “She looks like a bluebird—­for happiness.”

At the foot of the stairway Gordon was waiting for his bride—­handsome and prosperous as a bridegroom should be, with a dark sleek head and eager eyes, and beside him Porter Bigelow, topping him by a head, and a red head at that.

As Mary followed Constance, Porter tucked her hand under his arm.

  “Oh, Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
  Your eyes they are so bright,
  That the stars grow pale, as they tell the tale
  To the other stars at night,”

he improvised under his breath.  “Oh, Mary Ballard, do you know that I am holding on to myself with all my might to keep from shouting to the crowd, ‘Mary isn’t going away.  Mary isn’t going away.’”

“Silly——­”

“You say that, but you don’t mean it.  Mary, you can’t be hard-hearted on such a night as this.  Say that I may stay for five minutes—­ten—­after the others have gone——­”

They were out on the porch now, and he had folded about her the wrap which she had brought down with her.  “Of course you may stay,” she said, “but much good may it do you.  Aunt Frances is staying and General Dick—­there’s to be a family conclave in the Sanctum—­but if you want to listen you may.”

And how the rose-leaves began to flutter!  Susan Jenks had handed out the bags, and secretly, and with much elation had leaned over the rail as Constance passed down the steps, and had emptied her own little offering of rice in the middle of the bride’s blue hat!