Mrs. Payton put a black nine on a red eight; saw her mistake, frowned, and put out a mechanical hand to correct it. "I wonder if she would drink a glass of malted milk at night, if I fixed it for her?" she thought; and uncovered an ace. "Laura hasn't half her brains!" she said, and put the card in the ace row; "how could Mr. Maitland see anything to her--except looks? She _is_ pretty. But Freddy is worth a dozen of her, and he was head over ears in love with her! Yes; Laura simply took him from her! I shall never feel the same to Laura again;--and I suppose Bessie and William expect me to give her a handsome wedding-present." She wondered, with vague malice, whether there wasn't something in the house--the old wonder of the reluctant giver of gifts!--that she could send Laura? Some family silver; the epergne, for instance, three silver squirrels holding a platter on their heads. The question of the wedding-present was so irritating to her, that in the afternoon, when Freddy came in, rather listlessly (this was in November--a month before the wedding), Mrs. Payton referred the matter to her--shifting her angry pain to Freddy's galled young shoulders. There was no wincing. "What shall we give Laura?" "Something bully! I was talking to her about it to-day, and asked her what she wanted. I think a rug is the thing." "I wonder if some of the Payton silver--" Mrs. Payton began--but Fred threw up horrified hands. "No! No second-hand goods! And it's got to be something first rate, too; (if it takes my last dollar!)" she added, under her breath. The rug did not take quite the last dollar, but it took more than she could afford, and Laura was perfectly delighted with it. Howard, standing on it, his hands in his pockets, dug an appreciative heel into its silky nap, and made his usual comment: "It's bully! Fred's taste is great!" Sometimes, looking back on the night that Flora died, Howard wondered if it all (except the poor soul's suicide) was not a dream? For Fred _was_ so "bully"!... Entering into all Laura's ecstasies and anxieties; crazy to know who would make the wedding-dress; perfectly wild over Howard's present to his bride; frantic because it was too early to get jonquils for the rope down each side of the aisle.... That astounding moment in the bungalow must have been, Howard told himself, a dream! Two dreams--his and Fred's, for she evidently cared no more for him than for old Weston. So the days passed (Howard thought they never would pass!) and the Day drew near. When it came, Frederica Payton's head was as high as any of the other young heads. There were eight of them, in most marvelous and expensive yellow hats, to follow the shimmering Laura up the aisle. At the reception afterward, Frederica, in her vivid joyousness almost--so her Uncle William said--"took the shine off the bride! Remember Shakespeare (as _you'd_ say)--