"You think we had better not, simply to the ceremony? Of course I admit that we could not go to the reception at the house, since we have not called, but the ceremony?" "I think we had better not; this very late invitation--" "Oh, Randolph, that is easily accounted for. It is so easy to overlook an invitation." But Randolph persisted in his dissent to the proposition to attend. He was quite sure how the invitation had happened to come at all, and later on in the day he was confirmed in his opinion when Eddy Carroll made a rush into his office and inquired, breathlessly, if he had received his invitation and if he was coming. "Because I found out you hadn't been asked, and I told them it was mean, and I sent you one myself," said he, with generous indignation. Anderson finally compromised by going with him to the church and viewing the completed decorations. He also presented him with a package of candy from his glass jars when he followed him back to the store. "Say, you are a brick," Eddy assured him. "When I am a man I am going to keep a grocery store. I'd a great deal rather do that than have a business like papa's. If you have the things yourself in your own store, you don't have to owe anybody for them. Good-bye. If you should get those letters done, you come, and your mother, and I'll look out you have everything you want; and I'll save seats in the pew where I sit, too." "Thank you," said Anderson, and was conscious of an exceedingly warm feeling for the child flying out of the store with his package of sweets under his arm. Chapter XX Carroll had arrived home very unexpectedly that Sunday morning. The family were at the breakfast-table. As a usual thing, Sunday-morning breakfast at the Carrolls' was a desultory and uncertain ceremony, but when Major Arms was there it was promptly on the table at eight o'clock. He had not yet, in the relaxation of civilian life, gotten over the regular habits acquired in the army. "It isn't hard you'll find the old man on you, sweetheart," he told Ina, "but there's one thing he's got to have, and that is his breakfast, and a good old Southern one, with plenty to eat, at eight o'clock, or you'll find him as cross as a bear all day to pay for it." Ina laughed and blushed, and sprinkled the sugar on her cereal. "Ina will not mind," said Mrs. Carroll. "She and Charlotte have never been sleepy-heads." Eddy glanced resentfully at his mother. He was a little jealous in these days. He had never felt himself so distinctly in the background as during these preparations for his sister's wedding. "I am not a sleepy-head, either, Amy," said he. "It is a pity you are not," said she, and everybody laughed. "Eddy is always awake before anybody in the house," said Ina, "and prowling around and sniffing for breakfast." "And you bet there is precious little breakfast to sniff lately, unless we have company," said Eddy, still in his resentful little pipe; and for a second there was silence.