“And Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward?” asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

“Well, the Churchills are obstinate folk, as we all know!” answered Unity cheerfully.  “But I think time will help.  They can’t go on hating forever.  Uncle Dick is in the fields, and Uncle Edward is in the library reading.  There, there, honey!”

Mammy Chloe bore down upon them from the other end of the room.  “Miss Unity, don’ you mek my chile cry on her weddin’ mahnin’!  Hit ain’t lucky to cry befo’ de ring’s on!”

“I’m not crying, Mammy,” said Jacqueline.  “I wish that I could cry.  It is you, Unity, that are like a princess in your rose and silver, with your dear red lips, and your dear black eyes!  Isn’t she lovely, Mammy?” She came close to her cousin and pinned a small brooch in the misty folds above the white bosom.  “This is my gift—­it is mother’s pearl brooch.  Oh, Unity, don’t think too ill of me!”

“Think ill!” cried Unity, with spirit.  “I think only good of you.  I think you are doing perfectly right!  I’ll wear your pearl always—­you were always like a pearl to me!”

“Even pearls have a speck at heart,” said Jacqueline.  “And there’s nothing perfectly right—­or perfectly wrong.  But most things cannot be helped.  Some day, perhaps, at home—­at Fontenoy—­they will think of the time when they were young—­and in love.”  She turned and took up her gloves from the dressing-table.  “I have had a letter from Ludwell Cary,” she said, then spoke over her shoulder with sudden lire.  “He is the only one of all I know, the only one of all my people, who has been generous enough, and just enough, to praise the man I marry!”

“Oh, Jacqueline!” cried Unity, “I will praise him to the skies, if only he will make you happy!  Does not every one say that he has a great future? and surely he deserves all credit for rising as he has done—­and he is most able—­”

“And good,” said Jacqueline proudly.  “Don’t praise him any more, Unity.”  She put her hands on her cousin’s shoulders and kissed her lightly on the forehead.  “Now and then, my dear, will you come to see me on the Three-Notched Road?  I shall have Deb one week out of six.”

“I shall come,” answered Unity.  “Where is Deb?”

“She is asleep.  She cried herself to sleep.”

“Chillern cry jes’ fer nothin’ at all,” put in Mammy Chloe.  “Don’ you worry, honey!  Miss Deb’s all right.  I’s gwine wake her now, an’ wash her face, an’ slip on her li’l white dress.  She’s gwine be jes’ ez peart an’ ez happy!  My Lawd!  Miss Deb jes’ gainin’ a brother!”

“Jacqueline,” came Cousin Jane Selden’s voice at the door.  “It is almost time.”