The wedding was set for the first week in June. And the decision,
instantly acquiesced in by everybody, was that it was to be as quiet--as
strictly a family affair--as possible. The recentness of the death of
Rodney's mother gave an adequate excuse for such an arrangement, but the
comparative narrowness of the Stantons' domestic resources enforced it.
Indeed, the notion of even a simple wedding into the Aldrich family left
Portia rather aghast.

But this feeling was largely allayed by Frederica's first call. Being a
celebrated beauty and a person of great social consequence didn't, it
appeared, prevent one from being human and simple mannered and
altogether delightful to have about. She was so competent, too, and
intelligent (Rose didn't see why Portia should find anything
extraordinary in all this. Wasn't she Rodney's sister?) that her
conquest of the Stanton family was instantaneous. They didn't suspect
that it was deliberate.

Rodney had made his great announcement to her, characteristically, over
the telephone, from his office. "Do you remember asking me, Freddy, two
or three weeks ago, who Rosalind Stanton was? Well, she's the girl I'm
going to marry."

She refused to hear a word more in those circumstances. "I'm coming
straight down," she said, "and we'll go somewhere for lunch. Don't you
realize that we can't talk about it like this? Of course you wouldn't,
but it's so."

Over the lunch table she got as detailed an account of the affair as
Rodney, in his somnambulistic condition, was able to give her, and she