“Shut up yourself, Abby Atkins,” returned Sadie Peel.  “He’s got a wife to lead him around, and I don’t see much to worry about.  A great weddin’!  My goodness, if I don’t get married when I’m young enough to wear a white dress and veil, catch me gettin’ married at all!”

Sadie Peel sped on with her news to a group of girls ahead, and the wheels of the carriage flashed out of sight in the spring sunlight.  It was quite true that Risley and Cynthia had been married that morning.  He had not entirely lost his vision, although it would always be poor, and he would live happily, although in a measure disappointedly, feeling that his partial helplessness was his chief claim upon his wife’s affection.  He had gotten what he had longed for for so many years, but by means which tended to his humiliation instead of his pride.  But Cynthia was radiant.  In caring for her half-blind husband she attained the spiritual mountain height of her life.  She possessed love in the one guise in which he appealed to her, and she held him fast to the illumination of her very soul.

After the carriage had passed out of sight Abby came close on the other side of Ellen and slid her arm through hers.  “Say!” she began.

“What is it?” asked Ellen.

Abby blushed.  “Oh, nothing much,” she replied, in a tone unusual for her.  She took her arm away from Ellen’s, and laughed a little foolishly.

Ellen stared at her with grave wonder.  She had not the least idea what she meant.

Abby changed the subject.  “Going to the park opening to-night, Ellen?” she asked.

“No, I guess not.”

“You’d better.  Do go, Ellen.”

“Yes, do go, Ellen; it will do you good,” said Maria.  She looked into Ellen’s face with the inexpressibly pure love of one innocent girl for another.

The park was a large grove of oaks and birch-trees which had recently been purchased by the street railway company of Rowe, and it was to be used for the free entertainment of the people, with an undercurrent of consideration for the financial profit of the company.

“I’m afraid I can’t go,” said Ellen.

“Yes, you can; it will do you good; you look like a ghost this morning,” said Abby.

“Do go, Ellen,” pleaded Maria.

However, Ellen would not have gone had it not been for a whisper of Abby’s as they came out of the factory that night.

“Look here, Ellen, you’d better go,” said she, “just to show folks.  That Sadie Peel asked me this noon if it was true that you had something on your mind, and was worrying about—­well, you know what—­that made you look so.”

Ellen flushed an angry red.  “I’ll stop for you and Maria to-night,” she answered, quickly.

“All right,” Abby replied, heartily; “we’ll go on the eight-o’clock car.”

Ellen hurried home, and changed her dress after supper, putting on her new green silk waist and her spring hat, which was trimmed with roses.  When she went down-stairs, and told her mother where she was going, she started up.