"Mercy on us! I was not thinking of the man's habits. He's too good to have done the way he has. That's what I have against him. I don't know what I shall say to Father Josette. The disgrace of this is on me, too, for not looking after my house better. 'Never let her be humbled through her not being all white,' the father said when he brought you to me, and God knows I never forgot that your little heart was white. I trusted you as I would one of my own, and was easier on you for fear of a mother's natural bias toward her own flesh and blood; and now to think that you would lie to me, and take a man in secret that had deceived your sister before you,--as if nothing mattered so that you got what you wanted! And down in the town, without the priest's blessing or a kiss from any of us belonging to you! It's one way to get married, but it's not the right way." "Did no white girl ever do as I have?" asked Meta, with a touch of sullenness. "Plenty of them, but they didn't make their mothers happy." Meta stirred restively on the bed. "Will Father Magrath have to talk to me, and Father Josette, and _all_ the fathers?" she inquired. "He said he never would have married Callie anyway,--not even if he couldn't have had me." "And the more shame to him to say such a thing to one sister of another! Callie is much the best off of you two." Mrs. Meadows rose and moved heavily away from the bed. "Well," she said, "most marriages are just one couple more. It's very little of a sacrament there is about the common run of such things, but I hoped for something better when it came to my girls' turn. However, sorrow is the sacrament God sends us, to give us a chance to learn a little something before we die. I expect you'll learn your lesson." She came back to the bed, and Meta moaned as she sat down again, to signify that she had been talked to enough. But the mother had something practical to say, though she could not say it without emotional emphasis, for her outraged feelings were like a flood that has come down, but has not yet subsided. "If there's any way for you to go with Henniker when the troop goes, it's with him you ought to be; but if he has married without his captain's consent, he'll get no help at barracks. Do you know how that is, Meta?" Meta shook her head; but presently she forced herself to speak the truth. She did know that Henniker had told no one at the post of his marriage. She had never asked him why, nor had thought that it mattered. "Oh my! I was afraid of that," said Mrs. Meadows. "The colonel knows it was Callie he was engaged to. Father went up to see him about Henniker, and the colonel as good as gave his word for him that he was a man we could have in the family. A commanding officer doesn't like such goings-on with respectable neighbors."