"I have to go right away, dear," he said. "But I want to look at the new gift alone with you a minute. It's really a fine addition, isn't it?" "Oh, beautiful! In the firelight and the lamplight how that copper will gleam!" "I wish we knew to whom we owe such a thought of us. I like the sentiment, too, don't you, Charlotte? I hope--do you know, it's one of my pleasantest hopes--that our home is going to be one that knows how to dispense hospitality. The real sort--not the sham." Charlotte looked up at him and smiled. "As if I need tell you what I wish!" he said, with gay tenderness. "You know every thought I have about it." "We'll make people happy here," said Charlotte. "Indeed, I want to, Andy Churchill. This room--they shall find a welcome always--rich and poor. Especially--the poor ones." "Especially the poor ones. Won't old Mrs. Wilsey think it's pleasant here? And Tom Brannigan--he'll be scared at first, but we'll show him it's a jolly place--Charlotte, I musn't get to dreaming day-dreams now, or I never can summon strength of purpose to wait another week. One week from to-day! What an age it seems!" "Run and make your calls," advised Charlotte, laughing, as she escaped from him and hurried to the door. "The busier you keep, the shorter the time will seem." The week went by at last. To the young man, one of a large family long since scattered--many members of it, including both father and mother, in the old Virginia churchyard--the time could not come too soon. He had lived alone with his housekeeper almost four years now, and during nearly all that time he had been waiting for Charlotte. She was considerably younger than he, and when he had been, after two years of acquaintance, allowed to betroth himself to her, he had been asked to wait yet another two years while she should "grow up a little more," as her wise father put it. As for Charlotte herself, she still seemed to those who loved her at home hardly grown up enough at twenty-two to go to a home of her own. Yet father and mother, brothers and sister, were all ready to acknowledge that those two years had resulted in the early budding of very sweet and womanly qualities; and nobody, watching Charlotte with her lover, could possibly fear for either that they were not ready for the great experiment. The autumn leaves were bright, the white fall anemones were in blossom, when Charlotte's wedding-day came; and with leaves and anemones the little stone church was decorated. Not an invitation of the customary sort had been sent out. But, as is usual in a comfortable, un-aristocratic suburb, the news that Doctor Churchill and Miss Charlotte Birch wanted everybody who knew and cared for them to come to the church and see them married had spread until all understood.