Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/163



F Reba had struck Nathaniel Cawthorne dumb with her loveliness on that lovely May morning, she was something of a surprise to the young clergyman. He had not expected any such bride as this! And his mother, a belaced little woman, all aflutter since breakfast over such an usual event as this about to take place in mid-morning on a Saturday, in her yellow-brocaded drawing-room, was so upset after the arrival of the bride and groom, that she begged her son to have nothing to do with the ceremony.

She had received them in the hall as they came in, shaking hands with them both, and, to cover her surprise at the contrast between them, had twittered like an excited bird over Reba, leading her upstairs to the dainty chintz-hung guest-room, and effusively urging her to take off her things and "make herself at home." Reba blushed and hesitated over the unexpected hospitality, but she acquiesced in what seemed to be expected of her, laying her dust-coat upon the bedspread, and beside it her gray silk jacket, exposing to the clergyman's now thoroughly alarmed mother, Madame Boulangeat's triumphant panniers.

It was when Reba was in the bathroom, washing her already immaculate hands with soft, violet-perfumed soap and drying them on an embroidered bit of fine bird's-eye linen, that the clergyman's mother approached the silk jacket lying upon the embroidered bedspread, gingerly picked it up, and looked inside it.