"It is better to keep a country store than it is to hoe your own potatoes, barefoot," she responded tartly. "Besides, what about Scott Brenton's father?" Then, catching sight, by way of the mirror, of Catia's irate countenance, she stayed her speech. Already, she well realized, her bridesmaid's robes were in the extreme of jeopardy. Unsatisfactory as it was going to be to take the second place at Scott Brenton's wedding, it would be far more unsatisfactory to take the twenty-second, and watch the ceremony from one of the rear pews of the church, instead of from the front aisle which answers architecturally to the functions of the chancel. Besides, there was going to be a visiting minister extra, a rector who was a classmate of Scott Brenton and therefore rather young. And no one ever knew. Accordingly, Eva Saint Clair Andrews, called usually by the whole of her name, even in intimate address, stayed her speech and, after a fashion, temporized. "Of course," she added, with a hasty giggle; "a minister like Scott is more used to weddings than we girls are." Turning from the mirror, Catia spoke with a dignity which was crushing. "But not to his own," she informed her guest. And Eva Saint Clair Andrews gave up the effort to extricate herself from disgrace. Instead, she fell upon discussion of the wedding plans. "How many do you expect at the reception, Catia?" she made query, with an accent which discretion had suddenly rendered exceedingly full of respect. "Oh, I can't stop to count them up," Catia replied, with magnificent carelessness. "I've asked about everybody in town, of course. Mother would have insisted on it, anyway; and, besides, Scott's position would make us do it, even if he were the only one to count." Eva Saint Clair Andrews opened her blue eyes a little wider than was quite becoming. "I didn't suppose the Brentons were----" she was beginning. But Catia interrupted, with a fresh access of magnificence. "Not the Brentons, Eva," Catia had only lately forbidden herself the village use of the full name, and her sudden recollection of the fact caused her to speak with nippy brevity; "not the Brentons, but just Scott himself. Of course, we owe it to his cloth." "Yes," Eva Saint Clair Andrews answered, in an appreciative murmur. None the less, lacking the training vouchsafed to Catia by the closing functions of the divinity school, she wondered what the cloth might be, that it should so outrank good Mrs. Brenton in its claim to social precedence.