"I have a little money of my own," she said; "six hundred a year."

"It will pay for your hairpins," he said, and put out his hand and
touched her hair--black, and very soft and wavy "but the strawberries
I shall provide."

"I never thought about money," she confessed.

"Of course not! Angels don't think about money."

* * * * *

"So they were married"; and in the meadow, fifty-four
minutes later, the sun and wind and moving shadows, and the
river--flowing--flowing--heralded the golden years, and ended
the saying: "_lived happy ever afterward_."




CHAPTER II


It was three days after the young husband, lying in the grass, his cheek
on his wife's hand, had made his careless prophecy about "whistling,"
that Henry Houghton, jogging along in the sunshine toward Grafton for
the morning mail, slapped a rein down on Lion's fat back, and whistled,
placidly enough.... (But that was before he reached the post office.)
His wife, whose sweet and rosy bulk took up most of the space on the
seat, listened, smiling with content. When he was placid, she was