"She and Jessica went over that point a dozen times. You see Nora's
wedding takes place in the morning. She is going to have a wedding
breakfast, then she and Hippy will go to the mountains for a week. They
will return to Oakdale on the day of Jessica's wedding, and leave for a
long trip west the next morning. That was the best way they could carry
out a compact they made last June to serve as maids of honor for each
other."

Mrs. Harlowe listened to Grace's flow of eager talk with a smile of
content on her fine face. To her fond eyes Grace looked absurdly immature
in her simple frock of white dotted swiss. She was secretly glad that
Overton, rather than marriage, had claimed her alert, self-reliant
daughter for another year. Like every other mother she wished some day to
see Grace happily settled in a home of her own, but she preferred to think
of that someday as being still far distant.

Grace took out of her bag a guest towel she was embroidering. It was the
last of the half dozen towels she had worked for Jessica's hope chest. She
was not fond of needlework. She preferred to spend her spare time playing
golf and tennis, or riding and walking. This, as well as the hemstitched
table cloth and napkins she had completed for Nora, was a labor of love.
Now as she bent painstakingly over her work, she smiled to herself and
wove a tender thread of loyalty and love into the pattern.

A long clear trill caused her to raise her head quickly and spring to her
feet with, "Here they are, at last!" She ran to meet them.

Three girls, or rather three young women, came loitering through the gate
and up the walk, laughing gayly at something the girl in the center was
relating for their benefit. "Now what has Hippy done?" guessed Grace