"There has been an epidemic of weddings. Flippins' Daisy waited just long enough to help Mrs. Flippin get Miss MacVeigh married; then she and young John had an imposing ceremony in their church, with Daisy in a train and white veil, and four bridesmaids, and Mandy and Calvin in front seats, and Calvin giving the bride away. I think the elaborateness of it all really reconciled Mandy to her daughter-in-law." There was also, from Randy, a long envelope enclosing a thick manuscript and very short note. "I want you to read this, Becky. It belongs in a way to you. I don't know what I think about it. Sometimes it seems as if I had done a rather big thing, and as if it had been done without me at all. I wonder if you understand what I mean--as if I had held the pen, and it had--come---- I have sent it to the editor of one of the big magazines. Perhaps he will send it back, and it may not seem as good to me as it does at this moment. Let me know what you think." Becky, finishing the letter, felt a bit forlorn. Randy, as a rule, wrote at length about herself and her affairs. But, of course, he had other things now to think of. She must not expect too much. There was no time, however, in which to read the manuscript, for Cope was saying, wistfully, "Do you think you'd mind a walk in the rain?" "No." She gathered up her letters. "Then we'll walk across the Common." They shared one umbrella. And they played that it was over fifty years ago when the Autocrat had walked with the young Schoolmistress. They even walked arm in arm under the umbrella. They took the long path to Boylston Street. And Cope said, "Will you take the long path with me?" And Becky said, "Certainly." And they both laughed. But there was no laughter in Cope's heart. "Becky," he said, "I wish that you and I had lived a century ago in Louisberg Square." "If we had lived then, we shouldn't be living now." "But we should have had our--happiness----" "And I should have worn lovely flowing silk skirts. Not short things like this, and little bonnets with flowers inside, and velvet mantles----" "And you would have walked on my arm to church. And we would have owned one of those old big houses--and your smile would have greeted me across the candles every day at dinner----" He was making it rather personal, but she humored his fancy. "And you would have worn a blue coat, and a bunch of big seals, and a furry high hat----" "You are thinking all the time about what we would wear," he complained; "you haven't any sense of romance, Becky----" "Well, of course, it is all make-believe." "Yes, it is all--make-believe," he said, and walked in silence after that. The wind blew cold and they stopped in a pastry shop on Boylston Street and had a cup of tea. Becky ate little cream cakes with fluted crusts, and drank Orange Pekoe.