14 "Darling—are you sure, quite sure, that you love Chris?" 14 "Do I love him?" The brown eyes opened wide with amazement. "Why, I have always loved him," she said simply. But she held Miss Chester's hand very tightly as they drove to church in the closed car, and for the first time her child's face was a little grave. Perhaps it was the dismal day that oppressed her, or perhaps at last she was beginning to realize that she was taking a serious step by her marriage with Chris. "It's for all your life, remember," a little warning voice seemed to whisper, and she raised her head proudly a her heart made answer: "I know—and there could be no greater happiness." It was raining still when they reached the church, and the chauffeur held an umbrella over Marie as she stepped from the car into the porch. She wore a little traveling frock of palest gray, and little gray shoes and stockings, and a wide-brimmed hat with a sweeping feather. Though she had never felt more grown-up in her life, she had never looked such a child, and for a moment a queer pang touched the heart of young Lawless as he turned at the chancel steps and looked at her as she came up the aisle with Miss Chester. But Marie's face was quite happy beneath the wide-brimmed hat, and her brown eyes met his with such complete love and trust that for a moment he wavered, and the color rushed to his cheeks. But the parson was already there, and the service had begun, and in less than ten minutes little Marie Celeste was the wife of the man she had adored all her life, and was signing her maiden name for the last time with a trembling hand. And then they were driving away together in the car, to which Aston Knight, with a sentimental remembrance of other weddings, had tied an old shoe, and it flopped and dangled dejectedly in the mud and rain behind as the car sped homewards. And Christopher looked at his wife and said: 15 "Well, we couldn't have had a worse day, could we?" 15 Marie smiled. "What does it matter about the Weather?"
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