Unconsciously, perhaps, he wrote this letter as if he and not she had been waiting, and if he had known the state of the sensitive public opinion in Macochee, he might have felt himself justified in the attitude. Ever since his visit there the summer before his apparent prosperity had given the sentiment of the town an impetus in his favor; the people had turned their criticism toward Lavinia; for months it was a common expression that it was a shame she was keeping Marley waiting so long. They would nod in a sinister way, and insinuate the worldliest of motives; it was generally under stood that she was waiting for Marley to make a fortune, and this, they held, was demanding too much. She had withdrawn utterly from the society of Macochee; and she had not gone to one of the balls Lawrence had arranged that winter at the Odd Fellows' Hall; her position, outwardly at least, was as isolated as that of the Misses Cramer, the fragile and transparent old maids who lived so many years in their house sheltered by the row of cedars behind the High School grounds. When Judge Blair received the formal letter in which Marley told him he had asked Lavinia to name the day and requested his approval, the judge gave his consent with a promptness that surprised him almost as much as it did Mrs. Blair and Lavinia. He justified his inconsistency to his wife, in order perhaps, the more thoroughly to justify it to himself, by saying that he had long felt Lavinia's position keenly. "If the strain has been to her anything like what it has been to me," he said to his wife, "they could not have endured it much longer." "It will be lonely here without her," said Mrs. Blair, pensively. "Yes," the judge assented, and then after a moment's thought he added: "But we can now begin to worry about Connie." "Don't you dare mention that, William!" said Mrs. Blair, almost viciously. "She mustn't begin to think of such a thing." "But she's in long dresses now, and she seems to walk home more and more slowly every night with those boys from the High School." "Well, I don't propose to go through such an experience as we have had for these last three years, not right away, at any rate." The judge tried to laugh, as he said: "Well, I'll turn Connie over to you; I'm going to have a little peace now." The judge complained that he could find no peace, however, anywhere, so great was the preparation that raged thereafter in the house, driving him with his book and cigar from place to place. Mrs. Blair and Lavinia and Connie were in fine excitement over the gowns that were being fashioned, and Miss Ryan lived at the Blairs' for weeks, while in every room there were billowy clouds of white garments, and threads and ravelings over all the floors.