Even to her, happy as she was, confident as she was, the interval to Saturday sometimes seemed like a very long space of time. For one thing, she felt herself at night in the grip of a kind of foreboding absolutely foreign to her. Perhaps it was a natural reaction from the high tension of the day, but at night she sometimes found herself starting to her elbow in an agony of fear. Before the day came, something would happen to Don, because such happiness as this was not meant for her. She fell a victim to all manner of wild fears and extravagant fancies. On the second night there was a heavy thunderstorm. She did not mind such things ordinarily. The majesty of the darting light and the rolling crash of the thunder always thrilled her. But this evening the sky was blotted out utterly and quick light shot from every point of the compass at once. As peal followed peal, the house shook. Even then it was not of herself she thought. She had no fear except for Don. This might be the explanation of her foreboding. It happened, too, that his room was beneath the big chimney where if the house were hit the bolt would be most apt to strike. Dressing hastily in her wrapper and bedroom slippers, she stole into the hall. A particularly vicious flash illuminated the house for a second and then plunged it into darkness. She crept to Don's very door. There she crouched, resolved that the same bolt should kill them both. There she remained, scarcely daring to breathe until the shower passed. It was a silly thing to do. When she came back to her own room, her cheeks were burning with shame. The next morning she was miserable in fear lest he discover her weakness. He did not, though he marveled at a new tenderness in her that had been born in the night. The fourth day broke fair and Don found himself busy until noon helping with the decorations of green and of wild flowers; for though only a dozen or so neighbors had been asked, Mrs. Halliday was thorough in whatever she undertook. Had she been expecting a hundred she could have done no more in the way of preparation except perhaps to increase the quantity of cake and ices. Don himself had asked no one except old Barton, of Barton & Saltonstall, and him he did not expect, although he had received no reply to his invitation. What, then, was his surprise when toward the middle of the forenoon, as he was going into the house with an armful of pine boughs, he heard a voice behind him,-- "How do, Don?" Turning, he saw Barton in a frock coat and a tall hat that he might have worn last at Pendleton, Senior's, wedding. "For Heaven's sake!" exclaimed Don, dropping his pine boughs on the doorstep and rushing to meet him. "I call this mighty good of you." "I could hardly do less for Pendleton's boy," answered Barton. "Well, sir, you're mighty welcome. Come right in. Oh, Sally," he called.