“There is just one chance,” went on Aunt Amy, now gently excited.  She had never spoken of this chance before but she felt that Esther might like to hear of it.  “Just one chance!  You see, the world being round—­the world is round, isn’t it, Esther?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the world being round there is a chance that, if she waits long enough, eleven o’clock on Tuesday may come around again.  Then if she is ready and if she has the ring he gave her, the red ring, and if they are both very quick they may be married after all.”

“Oh, Aunt Amy, dear!  That is why you love the ruby ring?”

But the old lady’s memory was clouding again.  She looked bewildered and would say no more.  Esther kissed her with new tenderness.  “I am so glad you have it safely back,” she whispered.  “You need never be afraid of losing it again.”

Aunt Amy found it hard to make the pies that morning.  She was enveloped in a deep sadness, a sadness which in some misunderstood way seemed inseparable from the idea of that lost friend of hers, the girl-bride whose marriage hour had never struck.  It seemed to Aunt Amy that the girl had been waiting a very long time and was tired.  Even if the world were round, it was a very big world and eleven o’clock on Tuesday took a wearisome time to travel around it.  She could not understand why she should feel so terribly sorry for the waiting girl, but she did.  A hot tear fell into the pie-crust.  That would never do!  The pie-maker furtively dried her eyes and came back to the consideration of more immediate problems.

It may seem strange that no one noticed the morbid state of Aunt Amy at this time.  But it would have been more strange if any one had noticed it.  Of outward signs there were practically none.  Even the silent hand-wringing had ceased.  She ceased to rebuke Jane for stepping upon the third stair; she ceased to talk of the peculiarities inherent in sprigged china.  She was more and more careful not to mention “Them,” and, as always, her housekeeping was a wonder and a delight.

She even offered to make Mary’s wedding-cake.  An offer which Mary received graciously.  No one could make fruit cake like Aunt Amy and if it proved too big for the house oven the baker could bake it in his.  Jane was delighted.  She told Bubble that it was to be a “hugeous” cake, the like of which was never seen in Coombe and she defied Ann to produce any relative or ancestor whatever whose wedding-cake had even faintly approached such dimensions.  Ann retorted that big wedding-cakes were vulgar and that her Aunt Sykes did not think it proper for a widow woman to have a wedding-cake at all.