"Isn't this a midsummer's night's dream?" sighed Elma, after the congratulations were over. "I shall get up in the morning ever afterwards, and I shall say, 'Now here there dawneth another blue day'--even although it's as black as midnight."
"Well, now that we're rid of Mabel," said Aunt Katharine placidly, "when will your turn come along?"
"Oh, Elma is going to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton.
"H'm. Well, she always admired Miss Grace," said Aunt Katharine. "There's nothing like being an old maid from the beginning."
Elma stirred herself gently, and laughed in the moonlight.
"Miss Grace is to be married to Dr. Merryweather," she said with a smile. It was her piece of news, reserved till now for a proper audience.
Miss Grace had told her anxiously in the course of the afternoon. "Oh," Elma had said, "how nice! Dr. Merryweather is such a duck!"
"Do you think so?" had asked Miss Grace seriously. "Miss Annie used to think he was a little loud in his manners."
Miss Grace would ever be loyal to Miss Annie. Adelaide Maud came out just then with Cuthbert. "How much finer to have been loyal to the like of Cuthbert!" Elma could not help the thought. Ah, well, there were fights and fights, and no doubt Miss Grace had won on her particular battlefield.
A new dance commenced indoors, and some came searching for partners.