we've started them right, haven't we?"

The guests flowed conversationally towards the door and the sunny green,
while the organ played deafeningly. But play as exultantly as it might, it
could not drown the babble of human voices. Every one wanted to utter those
excitable commonplaces that seem somehow to cover at such times deep
meanings.

"What a perfect wedding!"

"How pretty it all was!"

"Not a hitch."

"She looked the part."

"Good fellow--nice girl--ought to be happy ... Well, old man, when is your
turn coming? ... Could hear every word they said ... looked as though they
meant it, too! ..."

In an eddy of the centre aisle a tall, blond young woman with handsome,
square shoulders and dark eyes stood looking about her calmly, as if she
were estimating the gathering, setting each one down at the proper social
valuation, deciding, perhaps, in sum that they were a very "mixed lot," old
friends and new, poor and rich. A thin girl, also blond, with deep blue
eyes, and a fine bony contour of the face, was swept by the stream near the
solitary observer and held out a hand:--

"Cornelia!"