“My wife and the children?” he repeated after her. “I don't think I know what you mean, Miss Cornelia. I must be dreaming--No, wait; please don't tell me what it all means just yet! Give me a little time to enjoy the dream.” But Cornelia went on. “You wrote Mrs. Bloodgood about your marriage,” she said. Sweet voices can be severe. “It hurried us a little, but we have tried to get everything in readiness. If there is another bed needed for the chil--” “I wrote Mrs. Bloodgood about my marriage?” he said, slowly; then as understanding dawned upon him the puzzled lines in his face loosened into laughter that would out. He leaned back in his rocker and gave himself up to it helplessly. As helplessly Cornelia joined in. The doll on the sofa smiled on--no more, no less. “Will you ex--excuse me?” he laughed. “No,” laughed she. “But I can't help it, and you're l-laughing yourself.” “No!” He got to his feet and caught her hands. “Let's keep on,” he pleaded, unministerially. “I'm having a beautiful time. Aren't you? I wish you'd say yes, Miss Cornelia!” “Yes,” she smiled, “but we can't sit here laughing all the rest of the afternoon. Marilla Merritt will be here--” “Oh, Marilla Merritt--” He sighed. The minister was young, too. “And she will want to know--things,” hinted Cornelia, mildly. She drew the smiling doll into her lap and smoothed its dress absently. The minister retreated to his rocker again. “I think I would rather tell you,” he said, quietly. “I did marry my old friend this morning, but I married her to another man. It was a mistake--all a mistake.” “Then you ought not to have married her, ought you?” commented Cornelia, demurely. Over the doll's little foolish head her eyes were dancing. Marilla Merritt might not see that it was funny, Mrs. Bloodgood mightn't, but it was. Unless--unless it was pathetic. Suddenly Cornelia felt that it was. The minister was no longer laughing. He sat in the rocker strangely quiet. Perhaps he did not realize that his eyes were on Cornelia's beautiful face; perhaps he thought he was looking at the doll. He knew what he was thinking of. The utter loneliness behind him and ahead of him appalled him in its contrast to this. This woman sitting opposite him with the face of the woman that a man would like always near him, this little home with the two of them in it alone--the minister knew what it was he wanted. He wanted it to go right on--never to end. He knew that he had always wanted it. All the soul of the man rose up to claim it. And because there was need of hurry, because Marilla Merritt was coming, he held out his hands to Cornelia and the foolish, unastonished doll. “Come,” he said, pleadingly, and of course the doll could not have gone alone. He dropped it gently back into its place on the sofa. Marilla Merritt had been unwarrantably delayed. She came in flushed and panting, but indomitably smiling. Her sharp glance sought for a wife and five children.