“Hendrik--well, why shouldn’t he?” Kate Clephane said. Anne was passing through the room, a pile of belated presents in her arms. “Do you hear, my dear? Your uncle Hendrik will be very much flattered.” Mrs. Drover’s little eyes grew sharp with the vision of Hendrik’s broad back and glossy collar playing the leading part in the ceremony. “The bride was given away by her uncle, Mr. Hendrik Drover, of--” It really would read very well. “Flattered about what?” Anne paused to question. “Your mother seems to think it’s your uncle who ought to give you away.” “Not you, mother?” Kate Clephane caught the instant drop in the girl’s voice. Underneath her radiant security, what suspicion, what dread, still lingered? “I’m so stupid, dear; I hadn’t realized it was the custom.” “Don’t you want it to be?” “I want what you want.” Their thin-edged smiles seemed to cross like blades. “I want it to be you, mother.” “Then of course, dear--” Mrs. Drover heaved a faintly disappointed sigh. Hendrik would certainly have looked the part better. “Well, _that’s_ settled,” she said, in the tone of one who strikes one more item off an invisible list. “And now the question is, who’s to take your mother up the aisle?” Anne and her mother were still exchanging smiles. “Why, Uncle Fred of course, isn’t he?” Anne cried. “That’s the point. If your mother’s cousin comes from Meridia--” Mrs. Clephane brushed aside the possible cousin from Meridia. “Fred shall take me up,” she declared; and Anne’s smile lost its nervous edge. “Now, is there anything else left to settle?” the girl gaily challenged her aunt; and Mrs. Drover groaned back: “Anything else? But it seems as if we’d only just begun. If it weren’t for Nollie and Lilla I shouldn’t feel sure of _anybody’s_ being at the church when the time comes....” * * * * * The time had almost come: the sun had risen on the day before the wedding. It rose, mounted up in a serene heaven, bent its golden arch over an untroubled indifferent world, and stooped westward in splendid unawareness. The day, so full of outward bustle, of bell-ringing, telephone calls, rushings back and forth of friends, satellites and servants, had drooped to its close in the unnatural emptiness of such conclusions. Everything was done; every question was settled; every last order given; and Anne, with a kiss for her mother, had gone off with Nollie and Joe Tresselton for one of the crepuscular motor-dashes that clear the cobwebs from modern brains.