What had changed her voice and burned fever spots in her cheeks? I wasn't so indifferent as I had seemed to Kitty's news. Had she told Helen, too, that Ned Hynes--what was he to my betrothed? "Can't you rest somewhere and just show for the ceremony?" I said, "Nelly, you're not strong." "There's not a place big enough for a mouse. But did you mean it? Do I really look well to-night? Am I just as beautiful as I was three-four months ago, or have I--" "Oh, do slip out and 'phone the _Star_! I can feel my hair whitening," whispered Kitty, turning to me hastily, as a couple of women entered. "See, folks are beginning to come." I went out into the warm and rainy night, but there was no Cadge at the _Star_ office. By the time I had returned with this information, the eyry held a considerable gathering. Mrs. Baker had arrived, and her two daughters; but I had no time to wonder at Milly's coming, for behind me entered Mrs. Van Dam and then, among a group of strangers, I noticed Hynes. Involuntarily, at sight of him, my eyes turned to Helen; but not a muscle of her face betrayed deeper feeling than polite pleasure as she helped Kitty receive the wedding guests, greeting the General cordially, Hynes with graciousness. Kitty's welcome to Mrs. Van Dam would have been irresistibly funny, if I had had eyes to see the humour. "Cadge promised to be home early," she sputtered, "but probably she's telling some one this minute: 'Oh, I'll be there in time; I don't need much--not much more than the programme.' "Can't _you_ guess where she is, Pros.?" she implored in an undertone, as her brother approached us. "If the minister gets here before Cadge does, I'll cut her off with a shilling." "What an interesting place!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam, examining her surroundings through her quizzing glasses. "I've heard so much about your paintings, Miss Reid. And what an astonishing girl, this Miss Bryant! Where can she be? Helen, you sly girl, I hear news about you." "Oh, very likely Miss Bryant is out of town," Reid answered for her with a quiet smile. "She'll show up after the paper goes to press, if not sooner." "On her wedding day! The girl's a genius! And when may that be? When will the--ah--when will the paper go to press?" "They take copy up to two o'clock for the second edition. But she maybe here at any moment." The General stared at him with amazement. "Oh, you don't know Cadge," sighed Kitty, "if you think she'd be jarred by her own wedding. But we must do something. Everybody's here and waiting. Sing, Helen, won't you? Oh, do sing." Helen had not joined in the rapid conversation. Now she smiled assent with stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a mandolin--not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmanship in inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the puckers in her forehead every minute growing deeper.