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Archer turned to the stage, where, in the faiant roses and pen-wiper pansies, the sa to the sae his eyes wandered to the point of the horseshoe where May sat between two older ladies, just as, on that forott and her newly-arrived "foreign" cousin As on that evening, she was all in white; and Archer, who had not noticed what she wore, recognised the blue-white satin and old lace of her wedding dress

It was the custoare: his mother, he knew, kept hers in tissue paper in the hope that Janey e when pearl grey poplin and no bridesht more "appropriate"

It struck Archer that May, since their return from Europe, had seldo her in it irl he had watched with such blissful anticipations two years earlier

Though May's outline was slightly heavier, as her goddesslike build had foretold, her athletic erectness of carriage, and the girlish transparency of her expression, reuor that Archer had lately noticed in her she would have been the exact i with the bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley on her betrothal evening The fact seemed an additional appeal to his pity: such innocence was asas the trustful clasp of a child Then he reenerosity latent under that incurious caled that their engagement should be announced at the Beaufort ball; he heard the voice in which she had said, in the Mission garden: "I couldn't haveto so seized hienerosity, and ask for the freedom he had once refused

Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man Conformity to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second nature It was deeply distasteful to hi Mr van der Luyden would have deprecated and the club box condemned as bad form But he had become suddenly unconscious of the club box, of Mr van der Luyden, of all that had so long enclosed hi the see at the back of the house, and opened the door of Mrs van der Luyden's box as if it had been a gate into the unknown