This was getting married.  “I wish my mother was here!” said Susan to herself, perfunctorily.  The words had no meaning for her.

They knelt down to pray.  And suddenly Susan, whose ungloved hand, with its lilies-of-the-valley, had dropped by her side, was thrilled to the very depth of her being by the touch of Billy’s cold fingers on hers.

Her heart flooded with a sudden rushing sense of his goodness, his simplicity.  He was marrying his girl, and praying for them both, his whole soul was filled with the solemn responsibility he incurred now.

She clung to his hand, and shut her eyes.

“Oh, God, take care of us,” she prayed, “and make us love each other, and make us good!  Make us good—–­”

She was deep in her prayer, eyes tightly closed, lips moving fast, when suddenly everything was over.  Billy and she were walking down the aisle again, Susan’s ringed hand on the arm that was hers now, to the end of the world.

“Billy, you didn’t kiss her!” Betts reproached him in the vestibule.

“Didn’t I?  Well, I will!” He had a fragrant, bewildered kiss from his wife before Anna and Mrs. Carroll and all the others claimed her.

Then they walked home, and Susan protested that it did not seem right to sit at the head of the flower trimmed table, and let everyone wait on her.  She ran upstairs with Anna to get into her corduroy camping-suit, and dashing little rough hat, ran down for kisses and good-byes.  Betsey—­Mary Lou—­Philip—­Mary Lou again.

“Good-bye, adorable darling!” said Betts, laughing through tears.

“Good-bye, dearest,” whispered Anna, holding her close.

“Good-bye, my own girl!” The last kiss was for Mrs. Carroll, and Susan knew of whom the mother was thinking as the first bride ran down the path.

“Well, aren’t they all darlings?” said young Mrs. Oliver, in the train.

“Corkers!” agreed the groom.  “Don’t you want to take your hat off, Sue?”

“Well, I think I will,” Susan said pleasantly.  Conversation languished.

“Tired, dear?”

“Oh, no!” Susan said brightly.

“I wonder if you can smoke in here,” Billy observed, after a pause.

“I don’t believe you can!” Susan said, interestedly.

“Well, when he comes through I’ll ask him—–­”

Susan felt as if she should never speak spontaneously again.  She was very tired, very nervous, able, with cold dispassion, to wonder what she and Billy Oliver were doing in this close, dirty train,—­to wonder why people ever spoke of a wedding-day as especially pleasant,—­what people found in life worth while, anyway!

She thought that it would be extremely silly in them to attempt to reach the cabin to-night; far more sensible to stay at Farwoods, where there was a little hotel, or, better yet, go back to the city.  But Billy, although a little regretful for the darkness in which they ended their journey, suggested no change of plan, and Susan found herself unable to open the subject.  She made the stage trip wedged in between Billy and the driver, climbed down silently at the foot of the familiar trail, and carried the third suitcase up to the cabin.