"Your husband is a sight younger than I expected, Jemima! I had been led to expect he was quite a settled man, a good ten or fifteen years older’n you, but he’s real handsome. You mustn’t get proud, child." Dawn started back as if she had been stung, and became aware at once of a black-coated figure standing close by her side. She was grateful to the people who kept talking to her and to him, so that there would be no chance of his speaking to her, or of her having to answer him now. She felt it would be more than she could do, and look at him now she would not, not till she absolutely must. It would unnerve her to look him in the face and know that she was his wife, and that he had a right over her from henceforth. Then, all at once, she heard his voice, and it was not Harrington’s at all. A quick glance assured her it was her friend of the roses. Perhaps, then, Harrington was still upstairs with his mother. She drew a breath of relief. A few mouthfuls of the wedding breakfast she managed to swallow, and she pushed a knife through the great white-coated fruit-cake, black with spice and all things good, which had been made when Mrs. Van Rensselaer first heard of the possibility of this marriage, and kept in ripening ever since. Dawn’s step-mother was a fine housekeeper, and knew how to be ready for emergencies. It was over at last, and Mrs. Van Rensselaer came to say that it was time for her to go upstairs and change her frock for the journey. Dawn had never before followed her step-mother with so much willingness as now. Her feet fairly kissed the oaken stairs as she mounted; but she had gone up only three steps when some one came quickly up and, standing by the stairs, touched her on the shoulder, saying in a voice that sent a thrill of joy through her: "We’re to go in the train; did you know it?" Forgetting her vows and her step-mother’s warnings, she looked down and saw that it was the young man of the garden again. Her face lit with a beautiful smile, and some people down in the hall, who were watching them, said one to another: "See how much they love each other, the dear children!" and turned away with a regretful smile and a sigh toward their own lost youth. "Oh!" breathed Dawn. "I did not know it, but"—she paused—"I’m so glad you are going, too!" In saying this, she had no thought of disloyalty to the man she thought she had married. It was merely the involuntary expression of her frightened heart that suddenly saw a rift in the dark cloud. "Oh, so am I," he smiled. "And I’m glad you wore my roses next your heart. Put them on again when you come down, won’t you?" "I will," she promised, and let her eyes dwell on him for an instant; then fled up the stairs as her step-mother called in a voice intended to be a whisper: "Jemima, do, for pity’s sake, hurry! You will be late for the train, and then there’ll be a great to-do."