“Oh, dear heart,” she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her lovely gracious arms, “then the privilege is all the more wonderful for you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life.  Having suffered this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him.  I accept my own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement as he has for years.  In the light of his love, this lesser feeling for Dr. Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be complete.”  This was more than I could stand, and, feeling less than a worm, I turned my face into her breast and wailed.  Now who would have thought that girl could dance as she did?

By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have had to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn’t run in all bubbling over.  Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief, and Pet didn’t seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and generally damp atmosphere.

“Molly,” she said with a deliciously young giggle, “Tom says you are to send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before the six o’clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes.  He has spent a guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing.  He says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, you ought at least to pay the piper.  Hurry up, he’s waiting for me, and here’s the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!”

“I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to you, Pettie dear,” I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk for my purse.

“Why, Molly, you know me better than that!” she exclaimed from behind a perfect rose cloud of blushes.

“I know Tom better than I do you,” I answered as she fled with the money in her hand.  I looked at Ruth Clinton and we both laughed.  It is true that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her the money and a blessing.

“I’m going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us,” Ruth said as she rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before I could stop her she was gone.

She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the doorway.  She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft was almost more than I could stand and apparently more than Billy was prepared to accept.

“Go away, girl,” he said in his rudest manner; “don’t you see I’m busy?”

I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on my parquet floor.  He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of triumph.