It was, indeed, as the Senator had said, very like the Colonel, who could
spare neither the old nor the new. It was also like him to give Grafton a
new stone library and church, and piece on rooms here and there to his own
house. In spite of these additions demanded by comfort there was something
in the conglomeration to remind the Colonel, who had returned to Grafton
after tasting strife and success in the Middle West, of the plain home of
his youth.

"The dear old place!" Alice Johnston murmured to her husband. "It was never
more attractive than to-day, as if it knew that it was marrying off an only
daughter." To her, too, the Farm had memories, and no new villa spread out
spaciously in Italian, Tudor, or Classic style could ever equal this white,
four-chimneyed New England mansion.

On the west slope of the hill near the veranda a large tent had been
erected, and into this black-coated waiters were running excitedly to and
fro around a wing of the house which evidently held the servant quarters.
Just beyond the tent a band was playing a loud march. There was to be
dancing on the lawn after the breakfast, and in the evening on the village
green for everybody, and later fireworks. The Colonel had insisted on the
dancing and the fireworks, in spite of Vickers's jeers about pagan rites
and the Fourth of July.

The bride and groom had already taken their places in the broad hall, which
bisected the old house. The guests were to enter from the south veranda,
pass through the hall, and after greeting the couple gain the refreshment
tent through the library windows. The Colonel had worked it all out with
that wonderful attention to detail that had built up his great hardware
business. Upstairs in the front bedrooms the wedding presents had been
arranged, and nicely ticketed with cards for the amusement of aged