Kate broached the subject of the New York trip at supper that night, but met with no encouragement whatever from her elder daughter, somewhat to her surprise.

"What is the use of buying an expensive trousseau? Mag sews quite well enough, and anyway I have more clothes now than I know what to do with," she argued practically. "If you think I haven't enough lingerie and all that, I can take some of Jacky's. It seems rather mean to desert a man just as soon as you get engaged to him. Besides, James and I shall be going to New York next month, on our wedding-trip."

"Next month?" cried Kate.

"Why, yes, Mother. There's no use putting it off, I think. James has been alone so many years; and he certainly needs some one to look after him. If you could see the pile of perfectly good socks in his closet that only need a little darning!" She spoke unsentimentally as ever; but there was a tone in her voice that made her mother give her hand a little squeeze.

"Very well, dear. You shall be married to-morrow, if you like."

"To-morrow is a little soon. Suppose we say three weeks from to-day?"

Kate gasped, but consented.

Preparations for the wedding went on apace at Storm, though it was to be a very quiet affair, not the fashionable ceremony, with bridesmaids and champagne, for which Jemima's heart privately yearned.

"I don't know any girls well enough to ask them to be bridesmaids," she explained wistfully to her fiance, who made a mental note to supply her with young women friends hereafter, if he had to hire them.

Nevertheless, it was something of a ceremony. The Madam did not have a daughter married every day. For days beforehand the negroes were busy indoors and out, cleaning, painting and whitewashing, exhibiting a tendency to burst into syncopated strains of Lohengrin whenever Jemima or the Professor came into view. The kitchen chimney belched forth smoke like a factory; for though no invitations were sent out, it was inevitable that the countryside, white and black, would arrive to pay its respects to the newly wedded, and Big Liza, with an able corps of assistants, was preparing to welcome them in truly feudal fashion.

Gifts began to arrive, silver and glass and china from friends of the Professor and business connections of Mrs. Kildare. A magnificent service of plate came from Jemima's great-aunt, for whom she was named. ("We must make friends with Aunt Jemima, James," was the bride's thoughtful comment on the arrival of this present.) Philip could not afford to buy a handsome enough gift, and so parted with the bronze candelabra which Farwell had so covetously admired; a sacrifice which did much to break down the hauteur of the bride's recent manner with him. She knew how well he loved his few Lares and Penates.

There were other presentations of less conventional nature. These Professor Thorpe, whom the panting Ark conveyed nightly from the university to Storm and back again, eyed with a mixture of interest and dismay.

"This suckling pig, now," he murmured. "How are we to accommodate him in a city apartment, Jemima? And that highly decorative rooster—I fear we shall have some difficulty in persuading my janitor to accept him as an inmate. Do you suppose all your mother's tenants will feel called upon to supply us with livestock?"

"Oh, no, Goddy! Look at this crazy quilt," chuckled Jacqueline, busily unwrapping parcels, "It is made of the Sunday dresses of all Mrs. Sykes' friends and relations. She thought it might remind Jemmy of home. It will. Oh, it will! You've only to look at it and you'll see the entire congregation nodding over one of Phil's sermons!" She made a little face at the cleric, who responded by rumpling her hair. "Then the Housewives' League mother organized has crocheted enough perfectly hideous lace for all the sheets and things. Your bed-linen is going to bristle with it like a porcupine."

"It's very good of them," said Jemima, reprovingly. "As for the livestock, James, we can eat it.—Look at this barrel of potatoes, and these home-cured hams, and all the pickle. Stop laughing at my friends!"

Thorpe murmured meek apologies.

The evening before the wedding, Big Liza came striding into the hall where the family sat assembled, bearing aloft a large round object wrapped in newspaper.

"Huh! Look at what dat 'ooman Mahaly had the owdaciosity to bring fo' a bridal gif'!" she snorted, swelling with indignation. "Reck'n she 'lows dey ain't nary a cook at Sto'm good enough to make no bride-cake. Allus was a biggity, uppity piece, dat Mahaly!"

She placed it on a table, and waddled scornfully out again.

The professor undid the wrappings in a somewhat gingerly manner. There was an element of the unexpected about his wedding-gifts which intrigued curiosity. This time he gave a rather startled exclamation, blushed and backed away.

It was a mammoth white cake, which bore, besides certain garlands and other decorations of a distinctly Cubist tendency, the legend done in silver candies: For the Baby.

"D-dear me!" murmured the professor, hastily shrouding it once more in its wrappings.

"That means Jemima," smiled Kate. "To Mahaly, Jemmy has always been 'The Baby.' She nursed her, you know."

"Nursed me—that mulatto woman who lives in the white people's neighborhood? I never knew that," said the girl. "How strange! She never comes here with the other old servants, even at Christmas time, and I've never gone to see her. Why was I not told?"

Kate did not answer.

"Did you have to dismiss her, Mother—was it that? Was she dishonest, or something of the sort?"

"No," said Kate, with an odd reluctance. "She was a very good servant in every way, and perfectly devoted to you and to little Katharine."

Jemima looked at her in surprise. It was very unlike the Madam to lose touch with any creature, human or otherwise, who had once faithfully served her. She waited for an explanation.

"Mahaly has never come to Storm," said Kate in a low voice, "since your father's death. She was his servant for many years before I came here."

"Oh!" said Jemima. The negress had evidently been one of her father's loyal supporters, resenting what she must have seen at Storm. "I see! In that case, Mother, I should like to do something for her. People who are faithful to my father—"

There was an uncomfortable stir in the room.

"Mahaly has been given the cottage in which she lives, as a present from you and little Katharine," interrupted Kate.

"I am glad of that," said the girl with a certain stateliness. "I was going to say that people who are faithful to my father must never be forgotten by his children."

"Nor by his wife," said Kate, with quiet dignity....

Despite the preoccupation of the wedding, Kate did not make the mistake of neglecting Jacqueline's affairs. She had had her warning. Moreover, though she would have denied it even to herself, the younger girl had come to occupy a far larger share of her heart than had even been given to the self-reliant Jemima. She had felt, lately (and the thought frightened her) that in watching Jacqueline she was watching her own youth over again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and passion and unselfish service, she knew as do those who have been the victims of such natures themselves. Jacqueline, if it were in human possibility to compass it, should profit by her mother's bitter mistakes.

She redoubled her vigilance on learning that Channing had after all not left the vicinity. Philip had passed him one day in one of Farwell's machines, and hastened to report the encounter at Storm.

"Perhaps he has come back for your wedding," she said thoughtfully to Thorpe.

The Professor's lips closed grimly. "He is not invited to my wedding. J. Percival and I have, so to speak, severed diplomatic relations. Look out for him, Kate!"

Philip, too, was not so certain as she that Channing was keeping to his promise with regard to Jacqueline.

But the girl was under her mother's eye all day long, excited as Jemima herself over the preparations, stitching with unwonted diligence on the bridal finery, running errands, seeing visitors, happy and busy and asking nothing better than to be with Kate or her sister whatever they were about. It was a little touching to both, as if the madcap girl had suddenly realized that the old companionship of home was about to be broken up, and wanted to have as much of it as possible.

There was no hour in the full days when she might have seen Channing, even had she wished. And Jemima continued to watch her mail with a hawk's eye.

Channing's word of honor not to communicate with the girl would have seemed, in itself, an insufficient safeguard to Kate, had not her knowledge of men reassured her. She believed that her daughter was not the type to arouse more than a passing interest in such a man as Channing. Her beauty, her flattered response to his attentions, her fresh, unsophisticated charm of gaiety, might well appeal to him for a time, adding the fillip of the unaccustomed to a jaded palate. But it was an appeal that must be constantly renewed, that would not outlast any continued absence. She believed that Channing, while he would accept with eagerness whatever good thing came to his hand, was too indolent and too self-centered to overcome many obstacles in the pursuit of a fancy.

Jacqueline herself was reassuring, too. Her manner of receiving the news of Channing's perfidy had showed her no stranger to the Kildare pride. She seemed to regard the affair as a closed incident.

"Do you think," said Kate proudly to Philip, "that my daughter would care to have anything to do with the man, now that she knows his utter unworthiness?"

"It is just possible that she was attracted to Channing by other qualities than worthiness," commented Philip. "Weakness, for instance. Women have been attracted by weakness before this."

"Phil, Phil," Kate laughed, "you are an 'elderly young man,' as Jacky says! Almost as elderly and wise as our Jemima. Stop croaking and come and see the new wedding garments Mag is putting on my old chairs."

She flung an affectionate arm about him, and led him indoors, his heart beating too hard and suddenly to make further speech possible just then.—Yet there was much he wished to say, and not about Jacqueline. These wedding preparations stirred certain yearnings in his breast, certain eager hopes. It seemed to him that his lady was warmer lately, more approachable, more present, somehow. Was she, too, stirred by all this thought and talk of marriage? It was hard to wait patiently. Yet he was too good a horseman to rush his fences.

Mag on her knees, her mouth full of pins, was cleverly fitting slips of gay-flowered cretonne over the masculine chairs and sofas, assisted, or at least not hindered, by Jacqueline.

"The old hall won't know itself, will it?" cried the latter, waving them a welcome. "All got up in ruffles and things, looking as frivolous as the lion in the circus with a bow on his tail!"

She ran after her disappearing mother with some question, and Philip, finding himself alone with Mag, was reminded of a certain duty he had to perform.

He stood a moment gazing down at her, she so intent upon her labors that she did not notice he was there. As always, the pathos of the girl moved him strongly; so young she was to be already one of life's failures, so helplessly a victim of early environment. Believed from care and hardship, well-fed and well-clothed and sheltered, she had grown sleek and soft and pretty as a petted kitten, and there should have been a look of content about her which he missed. Her mouth drooped a little, and now and then a visible shadow crossed her face.

He sighed. Rumor was once again busy with the name of Mag Henderson. Sometimes Philip wearied of his job as the neighborhood's spiritual policeman.

He asked gently: "Mag, you're not happy here at Storm?"

She looked up with a start. "Why—I didn't know no one was there! Why, yes, sir. They're real good to me and baby here."

"And you like your work, don't you?"

Again he noticed the shadow on her face. "I reckon so—as well as I'd like any work." People were always frank with Philip. "A gal gits kind o' tired of workin' all the time, though. I make dresses and trim hats for most of the ladies round about, now, and they pay me good, too. But...."

"But it's all work and no play, eh?"

"That's it," she said, grateful for his understanding. "I don't never have no fun. I ain't got no gen'leman friends, nor nothing. What's the use of havin' good clothes, and lookin' pretty and all, ef you don't get to go somewhere so that folks kin see you? I'm tired of bein' looked down on," she complained fretfully. "I ain't got a friend on this place 'cep'n Miss Jacky, and now she—"

Mag stopped short. Philip wondered what she had been about to say, but he was too good a confessor to force confidences.

"You've always got the Madam," he said.

"Yes, but she don't care nothing about me. She's kind enough, but so's she kind to any cur dog that comes along. What am I to her?"

"You've got your baby, Mag."

But the childish, fretful face did not soften. "Babies are more trouble than company to a person. Besides, she likes Miss Jacky now bettern't her own mammy. She cries to go to her from me.—It's fun I want, like other gals. Everybody, it seems like, has fun but me, even the niggers. Parties, and picnics, and weddin's and all—Oh, my, but don't I wisht I was Miss Jemmy!"

Evidently the wedding preparations had stirred longings in more hearts than Philip's.

"Even if she is marryin' an old man an' a cast-off beau of her ma's, look at the ring he give her! A di'mon' big as my thumb-nail. She let me put it on my finger once, and it looked grand. Oh, my, I'd do 'most anything for a ring like that!"

"Would you, really, Mag?" he asked curiously, wondering at the fascination shining bits of stone possess for women far more civilized than this little savage. "Do you think a diamond ring would make you any happier?"

"In co'se it would," she said, impatiently.

"Why?"

"Oh, I dunno—it would make me look prettier, I expect."

He said, kindly: "You do not need to look any prettier. You are quite pretty enough, as it is."

Her whole expression changed. She gave him a conscious upward glance. "Am I? Why, Mr. Philip, I never thought a preacher'd notice how a gal looked!"

It told him all and more than he wanted to know. He continued to meet her gaze with grave eyes, and after a moment her own dropped.

"'T ain't much use bein' pretty round here," she muttered. "The city's the place for pretty gals."

"Who told you that? The drummer I saw you talking with behind the village store a few days ago?"

She tossed her head. "Well, what if it was? I got the right to pass the time o' day with a fellow, ain't I? You'd suppose I was in prison!"

Philip sought out his lady again with a troubled heart. "Sorry to croak any more at this busy time, but Mag will bear watching. She's been seen about with men once or twice lately."

Kate sighed with exasperation. "'Give a dog a bad name.' I shall have to acquire the hundred eyes of Argus to keep up with my household nowadays, it seems!"

It was not the first warning that had come to her about her protÉgÉe. Big Liza, for years her confidential friend and ally, had said to her one day: "Dat white gal ain't keerin' so much about de chile no mo', Miss Kate. She's allus a-leavin' her with me, ef Miss Jacky ain't got her. Gawd He knows I ain't complainin' about havin' a chile aroun', seein' as how I done raise nine of my own, right heah under ma kitchen stove, like so many little puppy-dawgs. But dey wuz cullud chillun, an' dat's diffunt. Is dishyer hot kitchen any place to raise up a w'ite chile in? Now I ax you! 'Pears to me like dat gal don' keer for nothin' no mo' but traipsin' down to de sto' an' gallivantin' roun' de roads wid her fine clo'es on. She ain't no better'n a yaller nigger gal!"

Kate asked reluctantly (she did not take kindly to spying), "Have you ever seen her with men, Liza?"

The black woman compressed her lips. "No'm, Miss Kate, I ain't nebber prezackly seed 'em—but laws, honey, dat kin' ob goin's-on don't aim to be seed!"

Now that she had a more definite rumor to go by, Kate said sorrowfully to Philip, "You told me it was a mistake to bring her here in the first place. It seems to me I make a great many mistakes!" She sighed again.

"At least," said he, "they are the sort of mistakes that will get you into heaven."

She laughed mirthlessly. "You always talk, you clergymen, as if you had special advices from heaven in your vest-pockets!"

But she was comforted, nevertheless. She would have found it hard to do without Philip's steady adulation.