But this part of the business of getting married was also soon over.  Doctor Churchill was to take his bride away for a month’s stay in a little Southern resort among the mountains, dear to him by old association.  It was the first vacation he had allowed himself during these four years of his practice, and his eyes had been sparkling as he planned it.  They were sparkling again now, as he stood waiting for Charlotte to say good-bye and come away with him, but his face spoke his sympathetic understanding of those who were finding this the hardest moment which had yet come to them.

“Take care of her, Andy,” was what, in almost the same words, they all more or less brokenly said to him at last; and to each and all he answered, in that way of his they loved and trusted, “I will.”

From Andrew Churchill it was assurance enough.

* * * * *

CHAPTER II

“There!  Doesn’t that look like a ’Welcome Home’?”

Celia stood in the doorway and surveyed her handiwork.  Mrs. Birch, from an opposite threshold, nodded, smiling.

“It does, indeed.  You have given the whole house a festival air which will captivate Andy’s heart the instant he sets eyes on it.  As for our little Charlotte—­”

She paused, as if it were not easy to put into words that which she knew Charlotte would think.  But Celia went on gleefully: 

“Charlotte will be so crazy with delight at getting home she will see everything through a blur at first.  But when we have all gone away and left them here, then Charlotte will see.  And she’ll be glad to find traces of her devoted family wherever she looks.”

She pointed from the little work-box on the table by the window, just equipped and placed there by her mother’s hand, to the book-shelf made and put up in the corner by Jeff.  She waved her hand at a great wicker armchair with deep pockets at the sides for newspapers and magazines, which had been Mr. Birch’s contribution to the living-room, and at the fine calendar which Just had hung by the desk.  Her own offerings were the dressing-table furnishings up-stairs.

All these were by no means wedding gifts, but afterthoughts, inspired by a careful inspection of the details of Doctor Churchill’s bachelor home, and the noting of certain gaps which only love and care would be likely to fill.

In four hours now the travellers would be at home, in time, it was expected, for the late dinner being prepared by Mrs. Hepzibah Fields.

For the present, at least, Mrs. Fields was to remain.  “I’ve had full proof of Charlotte’s ability to cook and to manage a house,” Doctor Churchill had said, when they talked it over, “and I want her free this first year, anyway, to work with her brush and pencil all she likes, and to go about with me all I like.”

Mrs. Fields, although a product of New England, had spent nearly half her life in Virginia, in the service of the Churchills.  She had drawn a slow breath of relief when this decision had been made known to her, and had said fervently to Doctor Churchill: