“Have you any orders for me, Captain?” Marjorie Dean turned from the full-length wall mirror, both hands held out to her mother.

“None, Lieutenant, except the instruction, be happy.” Mrs. Dean caught the slim, outstretched hands in hers and drew the beautiful vision in white brocade into her arms.

“Dearest child. I am so happy that this day has come for you.” she murmured. “We are favored by God, darling, in that General and I are not going to be called to give you up. We shall still be with you, only we shall have gained a dear son.”

“That is the most beautiful part of it all, Captain. I can never love Hal enough for wishing and arranging things so gloriously for us all.”

“I mustn’t embrace you to the extent of wrinkling your wedding gown,” her mother said half tremulously, as she held Marjorie off from her and rejoiced in her loveliness.

“That doesn’t make the least bit of difference.” Marjorie wrapped her arms about her mother afresh and hugged her hard.

Her wedding gown was a marvel in a silvery white brocade satin. It was sleeveless and its simple artistic lines clung lovingly to her girlish slenderness. Around her neck was the string of pearls which her Sanford friends had given her at the party held in her honor at Gray Gables on the evening before she had started for Hamilton College as a freshman.

Pinned to the front of her pearl-trimmed corsage was a diamond star, Hal’s wedding gift to her. It held in place a tiny knot of purple sweet-scented violets, from Brooke Hamilton’s garden. The misty fall of her veil about her lovely face brought out its beauty anew. Never, even as the violet girl, would Marjorie Dean appear more beautiful.

As she stood affectionately clasping her mother in the last few moments left her as Marjorie Dean she was feeling that life had been almost too perfect to her. The crowning happiness had come to her within the past few days. Unbeknown to her Hal had purchased the Clements’ estate across the pike from Hamilton Arms. There he and she would settle after their short honeymoon at his camp in the Adirondacks, and with them were to live General and Captain. Danny Seabrooke had purchased Castle Dean, and he and Jerry were to live in it when they should be married the following September.

For a week prior to the wedding Hamilton Arms had been in a state of dignified upheaval. The marriage ceremony of Hal and Marjorie was to be performed by the Reverend Compton Greene at sunset. The great drawing room doors leading into a long back parlor had been removed, leaving a space almost as large as that of a church. No place could have been more ideally suited to the violet wedding which Marjorie had wished for. At the end of the long back parlor was a small balcony. On it were to be Constance Stevens, Harriet Delaney, Robin Page, Blanche Scott, Phyllis Moore and Charlie Stevens. These last two were to play the obligatos for the singers. All her dear friends far and near had been invited to the ceremony, and the entire student body of Hamilton to the reception to follow.

Vera Mason and Barbara Severn had been chosen by Marjorie as flower girls on account of their diminutive stature. It was Marjorie’s idea to have as many of her chums as possible figure in the wedding ceremony. Ronny was to be the ring bearer. Jerry her maid of honor. The bridesmaids were to be Leila Harper, Leslie Cairns, Helen Trent, Muriel Harding, Lucy Warner and Doris Monroe.

She had studied long and patiently for a way to include the remaining Travelers of her chapter and those of the other two chapters, as well as the Bertram group of girls. Finally inspiration had hit upon a plan beautifully in keeping with her desire for a violet wedding. In pursuance of it she had gathered her chums, as well as the girls who were to take part in her plan, at Hamilton Arms, the day before the wedding. There a merry afternoon had been spent picking the long-stemmed purple single violets that grew in profusion in the meadow behind the Arms.

Each girl had gathered her own immense bouquet of violets, which she would carry at the wedding. Dressed in white they would form an aisle between which the bridal party would walk down the room to the altar. Each girl holding her violets, fastened with graceful streamers of pale violet ribbon.

Now the last plan had been carried out. Downstairs an eager company was seated on each side of the broad ribbon-enclosed aisle, awaiting the arrival of the bride.

Came a gentle knock on the door. In response to Marjorie’s “Come,” Miss Susanna entered, a distinguished little figure in her dull silver lace frock.

“I only came up for a last minute with Marjorie Dean,” she said. She took Marjorie very gently in her arms. “I wish you and Captain to come with me,” was her crisp request, after she and Marjorie had indulged in one of their hearty embraces.

She led them down the hall to her room. As they entered both Marjorie’s and her mother’s eyes were attracted to a new object in the room. It was a chest of some sort of creamy white rare wood polished to a high degree. On the lid and sides were painted exquisite clusters of double purple violets.

“This is Brooke Hamilton’s wedding present to you, child.” Miss Susanna’s brisk tones faltered a trifle. “It was Angela Vernon’s hope chest which he brought her from the far East. I could not find it in my heart to place it downstairs with your other gifts. It is only for us. And now I will say, too, that when I shall have passed on to the brightness of beyond, Hamilton Arms and all it entails will be yours. I shall always feel that Uncle Brooke knew and sent you to me, so that you may carry on the work of loving and preserving Hamilton College unto the perfect end after I shall have finished my part of it.”

Five minutes later Marjorie was smiling again after a sudden little tear shower that she had not tried to control. Then Miss Susanna and her captain left her, and her throng of pretty wedding attendants gathered in the upstairs hall for the formation to the altar. Jerry was looking her prettiest in her gown of pale violet chiffon and a huge bouquet of violets and orchids. It was to be a hatless wedding. The bridesmaids were in orchid colored chiffon growns, each carrying a sheaf of white and purple lilacs. Ronny, as ring-bearer wore a marvelous gown of white gold-embroidered tissue. Robin and Barbara, as flower girls, wore crystal-beaded chiffon gowns of palest lavender and carried artistic long-handled baskets filled with white and purple sweet-scented violets.

The procession formed in anything but a stately manner. There was a great deal of fond laughing and talking, as the girls fluttered into place. First went the advance guard of white. They descended the stairs two by two, separating at the wide entrance doorway leading into the drawing room and taking their places inside the two stretches of broad violet satin ribbon.

Waiting only until the advance guard had formed below stairs, the bridesmaids led the way on Marjorie Dean’s most momentous journey. Behind them come Jerry, with a heart overflowing with happiness because she was Marjorie’s maid of honor.

Marjorie followed Jerry, her lovely face wearing the mildly serious expression which came to her naturally in moments of deep reverence. She was so utterly beautiful in her brave white array that Hal, watching her with his heart in his eyes as she came drifting toward him, was convinced that he could never hope to be truly worthy of her. Ronny followed with the ring on a white velvet pillow, and the flower girls came last.

From the balcony came the tenderest of all love songs, “Oh, Promise Me.” The singers had begun the singing of it before the appearance of the bridal party. As the little procession began to move down the long aisle toward the white violet smothered altar, the exquisite third verse of the song which is seldom sung floated out upon the roomful of rapt spectators.

Back on the wall behind the altar a blue-eyed man looked down from a portrait with the same kindly, questioning expression Marjorie had always read in his fine eyes. She had asked that the study portrait might be brought down and hung on the wall behind the altar. “I should like him to be there,” she had said simply to Miss Susanna. The old lady had replied rather huskily: “I am sure he will be.”

When within a few feet of the flower-decked spot where Hal and his best man, Danny Seabrooke, waited for her, she cast a calm friendly glance upward at Brooke Hamilton’s portrait. She thought she could almost catch a gleam of approval in his eyes. Then her eyes wandered to Hal, and she smiled and blushed in a kind of tender confusion.

The wedding party took their places before the altar. At Marjorie’s request Mrs. Dean joined her husband and daughter there. Marjorie had declared that she could not be content not to have both her superior officers beside her at the great moment.

Came the solemn, beautiful words of the Episcopal ring service. Marjorie loved the deep tones of Hal’s voice as he made his vows to her of life and death. Her own replies came clear and steady. She had found love and was happily confident for the future. Then their vows were plighted and Hal had placed the ring of their covenant upon her finger.

“Sweetheart,” he said, as he kissed the little ringed hand and then sought her lips. Then he whispered with the fondness of proud possession: “Marjorie Dean Macy.”