coat, the child laughed gaily.

"Aren't we having a good time?" Her breath was drawn in joyously.
"It's almost as good as being inside. Wouldn't you like to be? I
would. I guess the bride is beautiful, with real diamonds on her
slippers and in her hair, and--" She looked down on Van Landing. "My
father is in there. He goes to 'most all the scrimptious weddings that
have harps to them. He plays on the harp when the minister is saying
the words. Do you think it is going to be a very long wedding?"

A note of anxiety in the child's voice made Van Landing look at her
more closely, and as she raised her eyes to his something stirred
within him curiously. What an old little face it was! All glow and
eagerness, but much too thin and not half enough color, and the hat
over the loose brown curls was straw.

"I don't think it will be long." His voice was cheerfully decisive.
"That kind is usually soon over. Most of a wedding's time is taken in
getting ready for it. Did you say your father was over there?"

The child's head nodded. "They have a harp, so I know they are nice
people. Father can't give lessons any more, because he can't see but
just a teensy, weensy bit when the sun is shining. He used to play on
a big organ, and we used to have oysters almost any time, but that was
before Mother died. Father was awful sick after she died, and there
wasn't any money, and when he got well he was almost blind, and he
can't teach any more, and 'most all he does now is weddings and
funerals. I love him to go to weddings. He makes the others tell him
everything they see, and then he tells me, and we have the grandest
time making out we were sure enough invited, and talking of what we