village had a disturbed and festal air.

The procession was straggling across the village street through the stile
and into the meadow, tramping down the thick young grass, up the slope to
the comfortable old white house that opened its broad verandas like
hospitable arms. The President of the Atlantic and Pacific, deserted by the
Senator, had offered his arm to a stern old lady with knotty hands partly
concealed in lace gloves. Her lined face had grown serious in age and
contention with life. She clung stiffly to the arm of the railroad
president,--proud, silent, and shy. She was _his_ mother. From her one
might conclude that the groom's people were less comfortably circumstanced
than the bride's--that this was not a marriage of ambition on the woman's
part. It was the first time Mrs. Lane had been "back east" since she had
left her country home as a young bride. It was a proud moment, walking with
her son's chief; but the old lady did not betray any elation, as she
listened to the kindly words that Beals found to say about her son.

"A first-rate railroad man, Mrs. Lane,--he will move up rapidly. We can't
get enough of that sort."

The mother, never relaxing her tight lips, drank it all in, treasured it as
a reward for the hard years spent in keeping that boarding-house in Omaha,
after the death of her husband, who had been a country doctor.

"He's a good son," she admitted as the eulogy flagged. "And he knows how to
get on with all kinds of folks...."

At their heels were Vickers Price and the thin Southern girl, Margaret
Lawton. Vickers, just back from Munich for this event, had managed to give
the conventional dress that he was obliged to wear a touch of strangeness,