“Can you beat it, Granny?” Katherine was laughing and calling to her. “All in one fell swoop I get six tons of china, nine carloads of silver, a darling new house, a homely new husband, and a snobocratic ancestor and her pearls.”

Abbie Deal stood in front of the picture with Katherine’s flippant words rippling past her. Old Abbie Deal, with her snow-white hair in its neat little knot at the back of her head, with her dumpy pudding-bag figure and her long, gnarled fingers that tapered at the ends, stood and stared at the picture. And standing there, looking up at the lovely lady, old Abbie Deal began to cry. They are the most painful tears in the world . . . the tears of the aged . . . for they come from dried beds where the emotions have long burned low.

Mack put an arm around his mother and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Why, Mother, dear! Katherine, we shouldn’t have . . . I never thought, Mother . . . only the pleasure . . .”

They all closed around her, making comments. Jimmie Buchanan and Wentworth stood off, a little embarrassed.

The others all explained it volubly to each other.

“It was too much of a surprise . . .”

“Yes, she’s too old to have a surprise sprung . . .”

“The trip up here was too much for mother at her age.”

“It’s those weeks of sewing. I told her that quilt was too much . . .”

“No,—it’s the whole excitement together.”

Laura Deal came through the little knot. “It isn’t any of those reasons, is it, Grandma?” she said. “I know what it is . . . but I don’t know how to say it.”

Abbie dried her eyes. “I’m all right now.” She even smiled at them. “My, my, Kathie, tears on your wedding day. Whatever will you think? How selfish of me,—I’m that ashamed! But when I saw . . . when I saw the lovely lady that I used to dream about . . . it just came over me . . . in a sort of wave . . . all the wonderful things I planned to do when I was young . . . and never did.”

CHAPTER XXXV

Abbie was back in her bedroom and dressed, now, for the wedding, in the lavender silk with the lace collar from Vienna. Margaret had dressed her hair and Isabelle had manicured her nails and Grace had powdered her skin,—with Abbie a little uncertain of the outcome as though, in her excitement, Grace might have purchased gunpowder by mistake.

She loved the beauty of everything connected with the affair, but she was tired. It was queer how much more she could stand around home than when she was away. The work in the house, the care of the chickens and flowers,—the whole responsibility of the home place was not so tiring as something unusual and out of the ordinary like this.