"This may seem to you strange talk for a peaceful man. I have a precedent. As long as I tread in the Master's steps I shall not go far wrong." He sat down, and they cheered him to the echo. They had heard many noble men and women speak in that room; but I doubt if they had ever heard words which gripped their hearts as these had done. The news of the approaching marriage of the penniless young missionary to the great heiress, Miss Arnot, spread rapidly and evoked much comment, candid, caustic, congratulatory, from Jean's friends and otherwise. "Clever man, that young sky-pilot!" "Absolutely thrown herself away, my dear, and actually going to live among naked savages!" "Trust the missionary to feather his own nest. Why should he lose sight of No. 1 while saving brother man?" "The missionary man has done himself well. Poor rich Miss Arnot!" "Oh, well, you know, she's twenty-seven if she's a day, and when a girl gets to twenty-seven----! And they say he's exceedingly good-looking. Still, don't you know----" These behind her back. And to her face: "He's simply charming, dear. I envy you--I do indeed! "He's a splendid fellow, Miss Arnot. You will be very happy together." "My dear,"--this from a very old lady, bearing a very old title, whose early married life had been a hideous martyrdom--"you have chosen very wisely. He is a noble Christian gentleman, and he would lay down his life for you. Believe me, dear, compared with what you have got, all the wealth of the world and all its titles are nothing but dust and ashes and misery. I know it!" And everybody else knew that she knew it. And Jean kissed her very tenderly. And Mr. Punch, when he heard of the matter, in his playful little way quoted: "Doän't thou marry for munny, but--goä wheer munny is." CHAPTER VII SOME ODD FURNISHINGS AND A HONEYMOON Aunt Jannet Harvey's wardrobe was rapidly approaching completion. She and Jean had had a busy six weeks. They had neither of them ever been quite so busy in all their lives before, and the curious thing was that it seemed to agree with them mightily, and they, both one and the other, had visibly renewed their youth under the demands made upon them. Aunt Jannet developed new and surprising traits of character every day; and as for Jean, the days were not half long enough for the joy of life that lay in wait for each one as it came. She and Kenneth Blair had been quietly married by special licence a month ago, and the sight of their faces, wherever they had been since, had brought new ideals and new possibilities of life to all who looked upon them--all except the cynics and philosophers of Jean's former world, of course. "Quite so!" said they. "But just wait till the bloom is off the honeymoon, and she finds herself all alone with her little tin god among the savages! Then she'll find out what's what and sigh for the vanished fleshpots and fripperies."