Then she closed her eyes and tried to get her spirit calmed, but she felt like one of those old queens in a tower that they used to study about at school: who was soon to go out and have her head cut off with the guillotine. A few minutes later Mr. Winthrop again ascended the stairs to his wife’s room. "They want you to come down, Janet," he said gently. "Martha and the girls have come, and they are all waiting for you." "I shall not come down until I have had a talk with my son Harrington," said that lady decidedly. "Are you not coming down to the ceremony?" asked her husband. It went very hard with him to deceive the wife of his youth, but there seemed no other way to deal with her in the present situation. "The ceremony?" She arose with alacrity. "What do you mean? Has Harrington come, and has he explained everything? It has turned out just as I supposed it would." She stopped in front of the glass and smoothed her hair. She had arrayed herself in her best immediately after breakfast. "I should think it was time an apology was due from you, Mr. Winthrop." Madam Winthrop stood haughtily in the middle of the room, aware that her small figure was elegant, and feeling that she had entire command of the situation. There was a becoming triumph in the brightness of her eyes and the set of her cameo lips. "The wedding is to be at once," said her husband gravely, motioning her to precede him. "What was Harrington’s explanation?" she whispered, eager as any girl, now that she thought she had come off triumphant. "There is no time to talk about it now," said her husband, again motioning her down the stairs. She had a mind to make another stand before his grave authority, but in reality she was too much relieved from the awful strain she had been under during the past twenty-four hours for her to care to hold out against him longer. She went quietly down the stairs and took the place Mrs. Van Rensselaer most ungraciously assigned her. There was in that lady’s eye something unquelled which gave the bridegroom’s mother some uneasiness and took her mind from the ceremony, so that she failed to notice as the little procession passed by her almost immediately, that Harrington was not a part of it, and that her youngest son occupied the place of the bridegroom. It was not until the clear voice rang out in the words, "I do," that something in the boyish accents made her look up and stretch her neck to see her son. How strange that Harrington’s voice should sound so exactly like Charles’s! But some one was standing so that the bridegroom’s face could not be seen by her.