At last Maudie Whittaker's wedding day dawned--a golden July day, fair and still, without being oppressively hot. I think I have already said that the houses of Marksby and Whittaker were situated in one of the main roads of that favorite residential locality which is known to Londoners as Northampton Park, and to its residents as "the Park," without any distinguishing prefix. A stranger passing along Milton Avenue might have wondered what great function was afoot, for at both houses flags were flying, and on lines stretched across from house to house, amidst streaming pennons, was a great green and white marriage bell. From the gate to the porch of Ye Dene Alfred Whittaker had, some two years before, erected a covered glass way, almost a conservatory. This was lined with flowers and carpeted with red felt. A couple of stalwart commissionaires stood at either side of the entrance, and a crowd of the poorer denizens of the Park had gathered to watch the coming and going of the wedding guests. I must tell you at once that on this occasion Regina was truly great. "Mother," Maudie had said on the previous evening, when she bade her parents good-night for the last time as Maudie Whittaker. "Mother darling, there's one thing that you must not do to-morrow." "What is that, my love?" said Regina. "You will not cry when you get to church, and you will not cry when we go away, will you? Remember that in Harry you are gaining a son, not losing a daughter." "No," said Regina, "no, I shall not disgrace you. At the same time, Maudie, my love, if I am not losing a daughter I am losing my little girl." "Not a bit of it, mother," said Julia, chiming in to support her sister and resolutely keeping her thoughts turned from the fact that on the morrow half her life would be torn away; "you mustn't think that, dearest. You know the old saying, 'my son is my son till he gets him a wife, but my daughter's my daughter all the days of my life.'" "Then I hope," said Regina, solemnly, to the bride-elect, "that you will never make that poor little woman across the road feel that _her_ son is her son till he gets him a wife. But rest assured of one thing, Maudie darling, your mother will not disgrace you on your wedding day. I was at a wedding a few years ago when the bride's mother howled persistently all through the ceremony and till the bride departed on her honeymoon. They had not been on such terms as we have always been--in fact, if Constance Colquhoun had not fortunately found a husband, it is very certain that Mrs. Colquhoun and she would have parted company rather than have gone on living together in a continual state of wrangling. I have no regrets for the past and very few fears for the future. You will have your ups and downs, my darling, as your mother has had before you and as your children will have after you. You must look for them in this vale of tears, but anticipation of them on a joyful occasion is foolish even to criminality."