Highland Recorder

HAPPY WITHOUT GIFTS

CYNTHIA MISSED NOTHING REAL ON HER WEDDING DAY.

Episode That Makes Plain There Are Two Ways of Looking at Things, but Sylvia Was Unable to Understand It.

All the evening Dick had seen that Cynthia had something on her mind; at last she spoke:

"I went over to see Sylvia today. Her dining room is beautiful. She had nine berry bowls!"

"Three weeks from now," said Dick, "you may have 20."

"And five gilt clocks—why, she even has one in her kitchen."

"If you want a gilt clock I'll buy you one tomorrow," Dick promised.

But Cynthia was not ready to laugh.

"Dick, I never quite realized it all before. Sylvia and Bert had to buy a cabinet to hold the cut glass, and of course they felt that they must buy one worthy of the glass. Then they had to buy the rest of their furniture to match the cabinet, and so they have nothing left for the library. And then Sylvia said they had so much to pay back."

"O, Dick, think of having a 'pay back' feeling about your wedding! Somehow it seemed as if Sylvia's gifts had been just things; you could see that that was all they were to her. It frightened me a little. If everything wasn't planned and the girls' gowns made, I believe I'd give it all up, and have just the few dearest people that we know love us!"

Of course Dick had many things to say, and when he left Cynthia was half-comforted—but only half; and when, the next day, the first gift arrived, and it was a berry bowl, she felt like laughing and crying at the same time.

Then, suddenly, everything was changed. Mrs. Wilmot, her mother, became seriously ill, the invitations were hurriedly recalled, and for many weeks there was no time to think of anything except the invalid. When at last she began to recover, a few friends gathered at the house one afternoon and Cynthia and Dick were quietly married.

"It is such a pity that you had to miss your big wedding and your presents and all!" Sylvia Peabody said, pityingly.

"But I didn't miss anything," Cynthia replied, happily. "I had the dearest gifts! Old Mary hemmed me a dozen dish-towels."

"O, that kind!" said Sylvia.

"I know, of course, that you had some lovely things, but so few. We had over forty pieces of cut glass alone."

"I remember. You had beautiful gifts," Cynthia said, gently.

"Now what," Sylvia asked her husband that night, "do you suppose Cynthia meant? It sounded as if she were sorry for me. Cynthia Wilmot always was queer, anyway!"—Youth's Companion.