But, Edward's motives being what they were, he was proof against this. 'What will the congregation think?' 'Bother the congregation!' 'That's the second time you've said that, Edward. I'm afraid you are going from bad to worse.' 'No. Only going to be married mother.' 'But a year's engagement is the least, the very least I could countenance,' she pleaded, 'and a year is so soon gone. One eats and sleeps, and Lord's Day breaks the week, and time soon passes.' 'Oh, can't you understand, mother?' He tried illustration. 'Suppose you saw a beautiful shawl out on a hedge in the rain, shouldn't you want to bring it in?' 'Certainly not. It would be most unwise. Besides, I have seven.' 'Well, anyway, I can't put it off. Even now something may have happened to her.' He spoke with the sense of the inimical in life that all lovers feel. 'But things will have to be bought,' she said helplessly, 'and things will have to be made.' 'There is plenty of time, several weeks yet. Won't you,' he suggested tactfully, 'see after Hazel's clothes for her? She is too poor to buy them herself. Won't you lay out a sum of money for me mother?' 'Yes, I think,' she said, beginning to recover her benignity--'I think I could lay out a sum of money.' * * * * * Mrs. Marston had what she called 'not a wink of sleep'--that is to say, she kept awake for half an hour after getting into bed. The idea of a wedding, although it was offensive by reason of being different from every day, was still quite pleasant. It would be an opportunity for using the multitude of things that were stored in every cupboard and never used, being thought too good for every day. Mrs. Marston was one of those that, having great possessions, go sadly all their days. It is strange how generation after generation spends its fleeting years in this fetish-worship, never daring to make life beautiful by the daily use of things lovely, but for ever being busy about them. Mrs. Marston's china glowed so, and was so stainless and uncracked that it seemed as if the lives of all the beautiful young women in her family must have been sacrificed in its behalf.