It was nearly time to go to the church when there was a little movement outside the door and she heard Katherine’s voice, “I want to see grandmother.”

The door opened and Katherine stood on the threshold, in the exquisite whiteness of filmy lace, her eyes luminous, her face softened.

“My . . . my!” Abbie Deal raised her hands in admiration, “you take my breath away. You look like her, Kathie . . . but you’re even lovelier.”

With a swift little movement of the short lacy skirt, Katherine was across the floor and down by her grandmother. She caught Abbie Deal’s wrinkled old hands in her firm young ones. “Granny . . . I wanted to see you a minute. You’ve not liked me a lot of times, I know. We’ve been miles apart most of the time . . . but I wanted to come in and tell you that nothing really counts but Jimmie. Oh, Granny, I’d go with Jimmie . . . just as you did with grandfather. I’d live on pumpkin seeds, you know.” She was laughing a little, with moist eyes. “And dig a house in the side of a tree, just as you did . . . you know . . . all those things I’ve heard you tell about . . . Oh, heavens, I’m going to cry and I’m all made up, but Granny . . . I wanted you to know . . . that, after all, I’m just a lot of things you think I’m not . . . Oh, you won’t understand . . .”

Abbie Deal patted the lacy shoulders and with gentle old fingers touched the upturned face. “Why of course, Kathie, . . . of course, dear, . . . Grandma understands, the clock hands go round . . . and Grandma understands . . .”

The wedding was all that the wedding of Mackenzie Deal’s daughter would be,—a thing of extravagant simplicity. There were beribboned pews, soft lights, and chaste white tapers in silver candelabra against green palms. There was the organ’s mellow voice and the rich contralto one of the bride’s aunt, Isabelle Deal Rhodes, the well-known Chicago singer. There was Mackenzie Deal with his bald head and his horn-rimmed glasses and a lump in his throat. There was Mrs. Mackenzie Deal in her orchid and silver lace, a little too concerned over the details of the affair to think of her emotions. There were all the Deal relatives, well-groomed and prosperous-looking. And there was old Abbie Deal, sunk down low in the pew, the lavender silk dress with its lace collar from Vienna over her pudding-bag body, a knot of white hair at the nape of her neck, her tapering, gnarled fingers trembling with age in her lap.

The bride was at the altar now,—lovely Katherine, in her white lace and satin, with the heirloom of pearls around her neck. Old Abbie’s thoughts went over the cycle of one hundred and thirty-five years. Satin and pearls in a Scottish mansion,—a peasant dress and a head-shawl in an Irish hut,—a wine-colored hoop-skirted merino in a log cabin,—a navy-blue silk in a cottonwood and pine farmhouse,—white lace and satin and the pearls again in their beautiful modern setting.