Upstairs, a little later, Martha, coming in upon Charlotte, as she bent over a tiny trunk, put a solicitous question: 

“My dear, if there’s anything in the world I can lend you, will you let me do it?  I have a few quite pretty things with me, and I’d love to give them to you.”

Lifting a flushed, smiling face Charlotte answered:  “That’s dear of you, but I think I have enough—­of the things that really matter.  I’ve only this one travelling dress, but as we shall go straight to New York I can soon have the frock or two I need.  It’s so fortunate I brought a trunk at all.  When I came away I was so uncertain just what would happen next, or how long I might want to stop on the way back, that I put in all the white things I had there.”

“And beautiful white things they are, too, if that is a sample,” said Martha, noting with feminine interest a dainty garment in Charlotte’s hands.  “You’re lucky to have them.”

“My mother left stores and stores of such things, and I’ve been making them into modern ones ever since.  They are my one luxury,” and Charlotte laid the delicate article of embroidered linen and lace in its place with a loving little pat, as if she were touching the mother to whom it had belonged.  “Otherwise I’m pretty shabby.  Yet, I can’t seem to mind much.”

“You don’t look shabby.  You look much trimmer and prettier in that suit and hat than I in mine, though mine were new this fall.  If you knew how I envy you that look you would be quite satisfied with your old clothes,” said Martha, generously.  “And as for the husband you are getting—­well—­I suppose you know you’re in the greatest sort of good fortune.  All the way down here I’ve been watching him—­Jim says I haven’t done anything else—­and I certainly never saw a man who seemed so always to know how and when to do the right thing.  If ever there was a gentleman, born and bred, Dr. Leaver is certainly that one.  And he’s a man, too—­a splendid one.”

“I’m so glad you recognize that,” said Charlotte, a joyous ring in her voice.

Ten o’clock, the hour set for the marriage, came on flying feet.  Before Charlotte could fairly realize it she was walking down the street of the small Southern village to the little old church which Mrs. Rodney Rutherford Chase had attended as a girl.  The old rector who met them there had been a life-long friend of the Chase family.  Then, in a sort of strange dream, Charlotte found herself standing by John Leaver’s side, listening to the familiar yet quite new and strange words of the marriage service.  She heard his voice, gravely repeating the solemn vows, her own, following them with the vows which correspond, then the old rector’s deep tones announcing that they two were one in the sight of God and man.

She felt her husband’s kiss upon her lips, and, turning, lifted her tear-wet, shining eyes to his.  At that moment they two might have been alone in the world for all their consciousness of any other presence.