By the Open Fire
Roger stayed to supper, but none of them made more than a pretence of eating. The odour of tuberoses still pervaded the house and brought, inevitably, the thought of death. Afterward, Barbara sat by the open fire with one hand lying listlessly in Roger's warm, understanding clasp. In the kitchen, Miriam vigorously washed the few dishes. She had put away the fine china, the solid silver knife and fork, the remnant of table damask, and the Satsuma cup.
"Shall I read to you, Barbara?" asked Roger.
"No," she answered, wearily. "I couldn't listen to-night."
The hours dragged on. Miriam sat in the dining-room alone, by the light of one candle, remorsefully, after many years, face to face with herself.
She wondered what Constance would do to her now, when she went to bed and fearfully closed her eyes. She determined to cheat Constance by sitting up all night, and thenrealised that by doing so she would only postpone the inevitable reckoning.
Miriam felt that a reckoning was due somewhere, on earth, or in heaven, or in hell. Mysterious balances must be made before things were right, and her endeavours to get what she had conceived to be her own just due had all failed.
She wondered why. Constance had wronged her and she was entitled to pay Constance back in her own coin. But the opportunity had been taken out of her hands, every time. Even at the last, her subtle revenge had been transmuted into further glory for Constance. Why?
The answer flashed upon her like words of fire—"Vengeance is mine; I will repay."
Then, suddenly, from some unknown source, the need of confession came pitilessly upon her soul. Her lined face blanched in the candle-light and her worn, nervous hands clutched fearfully at the arm of her chair.
The Still Small Voice
"Confess," she repeated to herself scornfully as though in answer to some imperative summons. "To whom?"
There was no answer, but, in her heart, Miriam knew. Only one of the blood was left and to that one, if possible, payment must be made. And if anything was due her, either from the dead or the living, it must come to her through Barbara.
Miriam laughed shrilly and then bit her lips, thinking the others might hear. Roger heard—and wondered—but said nothing.
After he went home, Barbara still sat by the fire, in that surcease which comes when one is unable to sustain grief longer and it steps aside, to wait a little, before taking a fresh hold. She could wonder now about the letter, in her mother's writing, that she had picked up from the floor, and which her father had found, and very possibly read. She hesitated to ask Miriam anything concerning either her father or her mother.
Miriam's Confession
But, while she sat there, Miriam came into the room, urged by goading impulses without number and one insupportable need. She stood near Barbara for several minutes without speaking; then she began, huskily, "Barbara——"
The girl turned, wearily. "Yes?"
"I've got something to say and I don't know but what to-night is as good a time as any. Neither of us are likely to sleep much."
Barbara did not answer.
"I hated your mother," said Miriam, passionately. "I always hated her."
"I guessed that," answered Barbara, with a sigh.
"Your father was in love with me when she came from school, with her doll-face and pretty ways. She took him away from me. He never looked at me after he saw her. Ihad to stand by and see it, help her with her pretty clothes, and even be maid of honour at the wedding. It was hard, but I did it.
"She loved him, in a way, but it wasn't much of a way. She liked the fine clothes and the trinkets he gave her, but, after he went blind, she could hardly tolerate him. Lots of times, she would have been downright cruel to him if I hadn't made her do differently.
"The first time they came here for the Summer, she met Laurence Austin, Roger's father, and it was love at first sight on both sides. They used to see each other every day either here or out somewhere. After you were born, the first place she went was down to the shore to meet him. I know, for I followed.
"When your father asked where she was, I lied to him, not only then, but many times. I wasn't screening her—I was shielding him. It went on for over a year, then she took the laudanum. She left four notes—one to me, one to your father, one to you, and one to Laurence Austin. I never delivered that, even though she haunted me almost every night for five years. After he died, she still haunted me, but it was less often, and different.
"When you sent me into your father's room after that letter he had in his pocket, I took time to read it. She said, there, that she didn't trust me, and that I had always lovedyour father. It was true enough, but I didn't know she knew it.
"After you took the letter out, I put in the one to Laurence Austin. I'd opened it and read it some little time back. I thought it was time he knew her as she was, and I never thought about no name being mentioned in it.
"When he tore off the bandages, he read that letter, and never knew that it wasn't meant for him. Then, when you came in in that old dress of your mother's, he thought it was her come back to him, and never knew any different."
There was a long pause. "Well?" said Barbara, wearily. It did not seem as if anything mattered.
"I just want you to know that I've hated your mother all my life, ever since she came home from school. I've hated you because you look like her. I've hated your father because he talked so of her all the time, and hated myself for loving him. I've hated everybody, but I've done my duty, as far as I know. I've scrubbed and slaved and taken care of you and your father, and done the best I could.
"When I put that letter into his pocket, I intended for him to know that Constance was in love with another man. I'd have read it to him long ago if I'd had any idea he'd believe me. When he thought it was for him, I wasjust on the verge of telling him different when you came in and stopped me. You looked so much like your mother I thought Constance had taken to walking down here daytimes instead of back and forth in my room at night.
"I suppose," Miriam went on, in a strange tone, "that I've killed him—that there's murder on my hands as well as hate in my heart. I suppose you'll want to make some different arrangements now—you won't want to go on living with me after I've killed your father."
A Wonderful Joy
"Aunt Miriam," said Barbara, calmly, "I've known for a long time almost everything you've told me, but I didn't know how father got the letter. I thought he must have found it somewhere in the desk or in his own room, or even in the attic. You didn't kill him any more than I did, by coming into the room in mother's gown. What he really died of was a great, wonderful joy that suddenly broke a heart too weak to hold it. And, even though I've wanted my father to see me, all my life long, I'd rather have had it as it was, and he would, too. I'm sure of that.
"He told me once the three things he most wanted to see in the world were mother's letter, saying that she loved him, then mother herself, and, last of all, me. And for a long time his dearest dream has been that I could walk and he could see. So when, in the spaceof five or ten minutes, all the dreams came true, his heart failed."
"But," Miriam persisted, "I meant to do him harm." Her burning eyes were keenly fixed upon Barbara's face.
"Sometimes," answered the girl, gently, "I think that right must come from trying to do wrong, to make up for the countless times wrong comes from trying to do right. Father could not have had greater joy, even in heaven, than you and I gave him at the last, neither of us meaning to do it."
Human Sympathy and Love
The stern barrier that had reared itself between Miriam and her kind suddenly crumbled and fell. Warm tides of human sympathy and love came into her numb heart and ice-bound soul. The lines in her face relaxed, her hands ceased to tremble, and her burning eyes softened with the mist of tears. Her mouth quivered as she said words she had not even dreamed of saying for more than a quarter of a century:
"Will you—can you—forgive me?"
All that she needed from the dead and all they could have given her came generously from Barbara. She sprang to her feet and threw her arms around Miriam's neck. "Oh, Aunty! Aunty!" she cried, "indeed I do, not only for myself, but for father and mother, too. We don't forgive enough, we don't love enough, we're not kind enough, and that'sall that's wrong with the world. There isn't time enough for bitterness—the end comes too soon."
At Peace
Miriam went upstairs, strangely uplifted, strangely at peace. She was no longer alien and apart, but one with the world. She had a sense of universal kinship—almost of brotherhood. That night she slept, for the first time in more than twenty years, without the fear of Constance.
And Constance, who was more sinned against than sinning, and whose faithful old husband had that day lain down, in joy and triumph, to rest beside her in the churchyard, came no more.
"Roger," remarked Miss Mattie, laying aside her paper, "I don't know as I'm in favour of havin' you go to the city. Can't you get the Judge another dog?"
"Why not, Mother?" asked Roger, ignoring her question.
"Because it seems to me, from all I've been readin' and hearin' lately, that the city ain't a proper place for a young person. Take that minister, now, that those folks brought down for Ambrose North's funeral. I never heard anything like it in all my life. You was there and you heard what he said, so there ain't no need of dwellin' on it, but it wasn't what I'm accustomed to in the way of funerals." Miss Mattie's militant hairpins bristled as she spoke.
"I thought it was all right, Mother. What was wrong with it?"
Everything Wrong
"Wrong!" repeated Miss Mattie, in astonishment. "Everything was wrong with it! Ambrose North wasn't a church-member and he never went more'n once or twice that I know of, even after the Lord chastened him with blindness for not goin'. There was no power to the sermon and no cryin' except Barbara and that Miss Wynne that sang that outlandish piece instead of a hymn.
"Why, Roger, I was to a funeral once over to the Ridge where the corpse was an unbaptized infant, and you ought to have heard that preacher describin' the abode of the lost! The child's mother fainted dead away and had to be carried out of the church, it was that powerful and movin'. That was somethin' like!"
It was in Roger's mind to say he was glad that the minister had not made Barbara faint, but he wisely kept silent.
Life in the City
"That's only one thing," Miss Mattie went on. "What with religion bein' in that condition in the city, and the life folks live there, I don't think it's any fit place for a person that ain't strong in the faith, and you know you ain't, Roger. You take after your pa.
"I was readin' inThe Metropolitan Weeklyonly last week a story about a lovely young orphan that was caught one night by a rejected suitor and tied to the railroad track. Just as the train was goin' to run over her, the man she wanted to marry come along on the dead run with a knife and cut her bonds. Shegot off the track just as the night express come around the curve, goin' ninety-five miles an hour.
Miss Mattie's Fears
"This man says to her, 'Genevieve, will you come to me now, and let me put you out of this dread villain's power forever?' Then he opened his arms and the beautiful Genevieve fled to them as to some ark of safety and laid her pale and weary face upon his lovin' and forgivin' heart. That's the exact endin' of it, and I must say it's written beautiful, but when I wake up in the night and think about it, I get scared to have you go.
"You ain't so bad lookin', Roger, and you're gettin' to the age where you might be expected to take notice, and what if some designing female should tie you to the railroad track? I declare, it makes me nervous to think of it."
Roger did not like to shake his mother's faith inThe Metropolitan Weekly, but he longed to set her fears at rest. "Those things aren't true, Mother," he said, kindly. "They not only haven't happened, but they couldn't happen—it's impossible."
"Roger, what do you mean by sayin' such things. Of course it's true, or it wouldn't be in the paper. Ain't it right there in print, as plain as the nose on your face? You can see for yourself. I hope studyin' law ain't goin' to make an infidel of you."
"I don't think it will," temporised Roger. "I'll keep a close watch for designing females, and will avoid railroad tracks at night."
Miss Mattie shook her head doubtfully. "That ain't a goin' to do no good, Roger, if they once get set after you. I've noticed that the villain always triumphs."
"But only for a little while, Mother. Surely you must have seen that?"
The Villain Foiled
She settled her steel-bowed spectacles firmly on the wart and gazed at him. "I believe you're right," she said, after a few moments of reflection. "I can't recall no story now where the villain was not foiled at last. Let me see—there wasLovely Lulu, or the Doctor's Darling, andMargaret Merriman, or the Maiden's Mad Marriage, andTrue Gold, or Pretty Crystal's Love, andThe American Countess, or Hearts Aflame, and this one I was just speakin' of,Genevieve Carleton, or the Brakeman's Bride. In every one of 'em, the villain got his just deserts, though sometimes they was disjointed owin' to the story bein' broke off at the most interestin' point and continued the followin' week."
"Well, if the villain is always foiled, you're surely not afraid, are you?"
"I don't know's I'm afraid in the long run, but I don't like to have you go through such things and be exposed to the temptations of a great city."
"Why don't you come with me, Mother, and keep house for me? We can find a little flat somewhere, and——"
"What on earth is that?"
Apartments and Flats
"I've never been in one myself, but Miss Wynne said that, if you wanted to come, she would find us a flat, or an apartment."
"What's the difference between a flat and an apartment?"
"That's what I asked her. She said it was just the rent. You pay more for an apartment than you do for a flat."
"I wouldn't want anything I had to pay more for," observed Miss Mattie, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "You ain't told me what a flat is."
"A few rooms all on one floor, like a cottage. It's like several cottages, all under one roof."
"What do they want to cover the cottages with a roof for? Don't they want light and air?"
"You don't understand, Mother. Suppose that our house here was an apartment house. The stairs would be shut off from these rooms and the hall would be accessible from the street. Instead of having three rooms upstairs, there might be six—one of them a kitchen and the others living-rooms and bedrooms. Don't you see?"
"You mean a kitchen on the same floor with the bedrooms?"
"Yes, all the rooms on one floor."
"Just as if an earthquake was to jolt off the top of the house and shake all the bedrooms down here?"
"Something like that."
"Well, then," said Miss Mattie, firmly, "all I've got to say is that it ain't decent. Think of people sleepin' just off kitchens and washin' their faces and hands in the sink."
"I think some of them must be very nice, Mother. Miss Wynne expects to live in an apartment after she is married and she has a little one of her own now. If you'll come with me we'll find some place that you'll like. I don't want to leave you alone here."
Under One Roof
"No," she answered, after due deliberation, "I reckon I'll stay here. You can't transplant an old tree and you can't take a woman who has lived all her life in a house and put her in a place where there are several cottages all under one roof with bedrooms off of kitchens and folks washin' in the sinks. Miss Wynne can do it if she likes, but I was brought up different."
"I'm afraid you'll be lonesome."
"I don't know why I should be any more lonesome than I always have been. All I see of you is at meals and while you're readin' nights. You're just like your pa. If I propped up a book by the lamp, it would be just as sociable as it is to have you settin'here. Readin' is a good thing in its place and I enjoy it myself, but sometimes it's pleasant to hear the human voice sayin' somethin' besides 'What?' and 'Yes' and 'All right' and 'Is supper ready?'
The Blue Hair Ribbon
"I've been lookin' over your things to-day and gettin' 'em ready. The moths has ate your Winter flannels and you'll have to get more. I've mended your coat linin's and sewed on buttons, and darned and patched, and I've took Barbara North's blue hair ribbon back to her—the one you found some place and had in your pocket. You mustn't be careless about those things, Roger—she might think you meant to steal it."
"What did Barbara say?" he stammered. The high colour had mounted to his temples.
"She didn't know what to say at first, but she recognised it as her hair ribbon. I told her you hadn't meant to steal it—that you'd just found it somewheres and had forgot to give it to her, and it was all right. She laughed some, but it was a funny laugh. You must be careful, Roger—you won't always have your mother to get you out of scrapes."
Roger wondered if the knot of blue ribbon that had so strangely gone back to Barbara had, by any chance, carried to her its intangible freight of dreams and kisses, with a boyish tear or two, of which he had the grace not to be ashamed.
"Your pa was in the habit of annexin' female belongin's, though the Lord knows where he ever got 'em. I suppose he picked 'em up on the street—he was so dreadful absent-minded. He was systematic about 'em in a way, though. After he died, I found 'em all put away most careful in a box—a handkerchief and one kid glove, and a piece of ribbon about like the one I took back to Barbara. He was flighty sometimes: constant devotion to readin' had unsettled his mind.
"That brings me to what I wanted to say when I first started out. I don't want you should load up your trunk with your pa's books to the exclusion of your clothes, and I don't want you to spend your evenin's readin'."
"I'm not apt to read very much, Mother, if I work in an office in the daytime and go to law school at night."
Ten Books Only
"That's so, too, but there's Sundays. You can take any ten of your pa's books that you like, but no more. I'll keep the rest here against the time the train is blocked and the mails don't come through. I may get a taste for your pa's books myself."
Roger did not think it likely, but he was too wise to say so.
"And I didn't tell you this before, but I've made it my business to go and see the Judge and tell him how you saved my life atthe expense of Fido's. I don't know when I've seen a man so mad. I was goin' to suggest that we get him another dog from some place, and land sakes! he clean drove it out of my mind.
"I don't know how you've stood it, bein' there in the office with him, and I told him so. He's got a red-headed boy from the Ridge in there now, and I think maybe the Judge will get what's comin' to him before he gets through. I've learned not to trifle with anybody what has red hair, but seemin'ly the Judge ain't. It takes some folks a long time to learn.
"Barbara's goin' to the city, too, to spend the Winter with that Miss Wynne in the cottage that's under the same roof with other cottages and the bedrooms off the kitchen. I don't know how Barbara'll take to washin' in the sink, when she's always had that rose-sprigged bowl and pitcher of her ma's, but it's her business, not mine, and if she wants to go, she can.
"Me and Miriam"
"Me and Miriam'll set together evenings and keep each other from bein' lonesome. She ain't much more company than a cow, as far as talkin' goes, but there's a feelin,' some way, about another person bein' in the house, when the wind gets to howlin' down the chimney. We may arrange to have supper together, once in a while, and in case of severeweather, put the two fires goin' in one house, which ever's the warmest.
"I don't know what we shall do, for we ain't talked it over much yet, but with church twice on Sunday and prayer-meetin' Wednesday evenings, and the sewin' circle on Friday, and two New York papers every week, and Miriam, and all your pa's books to prop up against the lamp, I don't reckon I'll get so dreadful lonesome. I've thought some of gettin' myself a cat. There's somethin' mighty comfortable and heartenin' about a cup of hot tea and the sound of purrin' close by. And on the Spring excursion to the city, I reckon I'll come up and see you, if I don't have no more pain in my back."
Dr. Conrad's Automobile
"I'd love to have you come, Mother, and I'd do all I could to give you a good time. I know the others would, too. Doctor Conrad has an automobile and——"
Miss Mattie became deeply concerned. "Is he treatin' himself for it?" she demanded.
"I don't think so," answered Roger, choking back a laugh.
"It beats all," mused Miss Mattie. "They say the shoemaker's children never have shoes, and it seems that doctors have diseases just like other folks. I disremember of havin' heard of this, but I know from my own experience that a disease with only one word to it can be dreadful painful. Is it catchin'?"
"Not with full speed on," replied Roger. "An automobile is very hard to catch."
"Well, see that you don't take it," cautioned Miss Mattie. The first part of his answer was obscure, but she was not one to pause over an uninteresting detail.
"You've warned me about almost everything now, Mother," he said, smiling. "Is there anything else?"
"Nothing but matrimony, and that's included under the head of designing females. I shouldn't want you to get married."
"Why not?"
Welded Souls
"I don't know as I could tell you just why, only it seems to me that a person is just as well off without it. I've been thinking of it a good deal since I've had these New York papers and read so much about two souls bein' welded into one. My soul wasn't never welded with your pa's, nor his with mine, as I know of.
"Marriage wasn't so dreadful different from livin' at home. It reminded me of the Summer ma took a boarder, your pa required so much waitin' on. And when you came, I had a baby to take care of besides. If I was welded I never noticed it—I was too busy."
Roger's heart softened into unspeakable pity. In missing the "welding," Miss Mattie had missed the best that life has to give. Somewhere, doubtless, the man existed whocould have stirred the woman's soul beneath the surface shallows and set the sordid tasks of daily living in tune with the music that sways the world.
"Un-marriage"
"There's a good deal in the papers about un-marriage, too," resumed Miss Mattie, "and I can't understand it. When you've stood before the altar and said 'till death do us part,' I don't see how another man, who ain't even a minister, can undo it and let you have another chance at it. Maybe you do, bein' as you're up in law, but I don't.
"It looks to me as if the laws were wrong or else the marriage ceremony ought to be written different. If a man said, 'I take thee to be my wedded wife, to love and to cherish until I see somebody else I like better,' I could understand the un-marriage, but I can't now. When you get to be a power in the law, Roger, I think you should try to get that fixed. I never was welded, but after I'd given my word, I stuck to it, even though your pa was dreadful aggravatin' sometimes. He didn't mean to be, but he was. I guess it's the nature of men folks."
Deeply moved, Roger went over and kissed her smooth cheek. "Have I been aggravating, Mother?"
Miss Mattie's eyes grew misty. She took off her spectacles and wiped them briskly on one corner of the table-cover. "No more'nwas natural, I guess," she answered. "You've been a good boy, Roger, and I want you should be a good man. When you get away from home, where your mother can't look after you, just remember that she expects you to be good, like your pa. He might have been aggravatin', but he wasn't wicked."
Remember
All the best part of the boy's nature rose in answer, and the mist came into his eyes, too. "I'll remember, Mother, and you shall never be disappointed in me—I promise you that."
Autumn Glory
Summer had gone long ago, but the sweetness of her passing yet lay upon the land and sea. The hills were glorious with a pageantry of scarlet and gold where, in the midnight silences, the soul of the woods had flamed in answer to the far, mysterious bugles of the frost. Bloom was on the grapes in the vineyard, and fairy lace, of cobweb fineness, had been hung by the secret spinners from stem to stem of the purple clusters and across bits of stubble in the field.
From the blue sea, now and then, came the breath of Winter, though Autumn lingered on the shore. Many of the people at the hotel had gone back to town, feeling the imperious call of the city with the first keen wind. Eloise, with a few others, waited. She expected to stay until Barbara was strong enough to go with her.
But Barbara's strength was coming very slowly now. She grieved for her father, andthe grieving kept her back. Allan came down once a fortnight to spend Sunday with Eloise and to look after Barbara, though he realised that Barbara was, in a way, beyond his reach.
What We Need
"She doesn't need medicine," he said, to Eloise. "She is perfectly well, physically, though of course her strength is limited and will be for some time to come. What she needs is happiness."
"That is what we all need," answered Eloise.
Allan flashed a quick glance at her. "Even I," he said, in a different tone, "but I must wait for mine."
"We all wait for things," she laughed, but the lovely colour had mounted to the roots of her hair that waved so softly back from her low forehead.
"When, dear?" insisted Allan, possessing himself of her hand.
"I promised once," she answered. "When the colour is all gone from the hills and the last leaves have fallen, then I'll come."
"You're not counting the oaks?" he asked, half fearfully. "Sometimes the oak leaves stay on all Winter, you know. And evergreens are ruled out, aren't they?"
"Certainly. We won't count the oaks or the Christmas trees. Long before Santa Claus comes, I'll be a sedate matron instead of a flyaway, frivolous spinster."
"For the first time since I grew up," remarked Allan, with evident sincerity, "I wish Christmas came earlier. Upon what day, fair lady, do you think the leaves will be gone?"
"In November, I suppose," she answered, with an affected indifference that did not deceive him. "The day after Thanksgiving, perhaps."
"That's Friday, and I positively refuse to be married on a Friday."
The Best Day of All
"Then the day before—that's Wednesday. You know the old rhyme says: 'Wednesday the best day of all.'"
So it was settled. Allan laughingly put down in his little red leather pocket diary, under the date of Wednesday, November twenty-fifth, "Miss Wynne's wedding." "Where is it to be?" he asked. "I wouldn't miss it for worlds."
"I've been thinking about that," said Eloise, slowly, after a pause. "I suppose we'll have to be conventional."
"Why?"
"Because everybody is."
"The very reason why we shouldn't be. This is our wedding, and we'll have it to please ourselves. It's probably our last."
"In spite of the advanced civilisation in which we live," she returned, "I hope and believe that it is the one and only weddingin which either of us will ever take a leading part."
"Haven't you ever had day-dreams, dear, about your wedding?"
"Many a time," she laughed. "I'd be the rankest kind of polygamist if I had all the kinds I've planned for."
"But the best kind?" he persisted. "Which is in the ascendant now?"
An Ideal Wedding
"If I could choose," she replied, thoughtfully, "I'd have it in some quiet little country church, on a brilliant, sunshiny day—the kind that makes your blood tingle and fills you with the joy of living. I'd like it to be Indian Summer, with gold and crimson leaves falling all through the woods. I'd like to have little brown birds chirping, and squirrels and chipmunks pattering through the leaves. I'd like to have the church almost in the heart of the woods, and have the sun stream into every nook and corner of it while we were being married. I'd like two taper lights at the altar, and the Episcopal service, but no music."
"Any crowd?"
Her sweet face grew very tender. "No," she said. "Nobody but our two selves."
"We'll have to have a minister," he reminded her, practically, "and two witnesses. Otherwise it isn't legal. Whom would you choose for witnesses?"
"I think I'd like to have Barbara and Roger. I don't know why, for I have so many other friends who mean more to me. Yet it seems, some way, as if they two belonged in the picture."
Right Now
A bright idea came to Allan. "Dearest," he said, "you couldn't have the falling leaves and the squirrels if we waited until Thanksgiving time, but it's all here, right now. Don't you remember that little church in the woods that we passed the other day—the little white church with maples all around it and the Autumn leaves dropping silently through the still, warm air? Why not here—and now?"
"Oh, I couldn't," cried Eloise.
"Why not?"
"Oh, you're so stupid! Clothes and things! I've got a million things to do before I can be married decently."
He laughed at her woman's reason as he put his arms around her. "I want a wife, and not a Parisian wardrobe. You're lovelier to me right now in your white linen gown than you've ever been before. Don't wear yourself out with dressmakers and shopping. You'll have all the rest of your life for that."
"Won't I have all the rest of my life to get married in?" she queried, demurely.
"You have if you insist upon taking it, darling, but I feel very strongly to get married to-day."
"Not to-day," she demurred.
"Why not? It's only half past one and the ceremony doesn't last over twenty minutes. I suppose it can be cut down to fifteen or eighteen if you insist upon having it condensed. You don't even need to wash your face. Get your hat and come on."
His tone was tender, even pleading, but some far survival of Primitive Woman, whose marriage was by capture, stirred faintly in Eloise. "Our friends won't like it," she said, as a last excuse.
The Two Concerned
He noted, with joy, that she said "won't," instead of "wouldn't," but she did not realise that she had betrayed herself. "We don't care, do we?" he asked. "It's our wedding and nobody's else. When we can't please everybody, we might as well please ourselves. Matrimony is the one thing in the world that concerns nobody but the two who enter into it—and it's the thing that everybody has the most to say about. While you're putting on your hat, I'll get the license and see about a carriage."
"I thought I'd wait until Barbara could go to town with me," she said.
"There's nothing to hinder your coming back for her, if you want to and she isn't willing to come with Roger. I insist upon having my honeymoon alone."
"All alone? If I were very good, wouldn't you let me come along?"
Allan coloured. "You know what I mean," he said, softly. "I've waited so long, darling, and I think I've been patient. Isn't it time I was rewarded?"
They were on the beach, behind the friendly sand-dune that had been their trysting place all Summer. Thoroughly humble in her surrender, yet wholly womanly, Eloise put her soft arms around his neck. "I will," she said. "Kiss me for the last time before——"
"Before what?" demanded Allan, as, laughing, she extricated herself from his close embrace.
"Before you exchange your sweetheart for a wife."
More Secure
"I'm not making any exchange. I'm only making my possession more secure. Look, dear."
He took from his pocket a shining golden circlet which exactly fitted the third finger of her left hand. Their initials were engraved inside. Only the date was lacking.
"I've had it for a long, long time," he said, in reply to her surprised question. "I hoped that some day I might find you in a yielding mood."
When she went up to her room, her heart was beating wildly. This sudden plunge into the unknown was blinding, even though she longed to make it. Having come to the edge of the precipice she feared the leap, in spiteof the conviction that life-long happiness lay beyond.
In the fond sight of her lover, Eloise was very lovely when she went down in her white gown and hat, her eyes shining with the world-old joy that makes the old world new for those to whom it comes, be it soon or late.
Beautifully Unconventional
"It's beautifully unconventional," she said, as he assisted her into the surrey. "No bridesmaids, no wedding presents, and no dreary round of entertainments. I believe I like it."
"I know I do," he responded, fervently. "You're the loveliest thing I've ever seen, sweetheart. Is that a new gown?"
"I've worn it all Summer," she laughed "and it's been washed over a dozen times. You have lots to learn about gowns."
"I'm a willing pupil," he announced. "Shouldn't you have a veil? I believe the bride's veil is usually 'of tulle, caught with a diamond star, the gift of the groom.'"
"You've been reading the society column. Give me the star, and I'll get the veil."
"You shall have it the first minute we get to town. I'd rob the Milky Way for you, if I could. I'd give you a handful of stars to play with and let you roll the sun and moon over the golf links."
"I may take the moon," she replied. "I've always liked the looks of it, but I'm afraid the sun would burn my fingers. Somebody once got into trouble, I believe, for trying to drive the chariot of the sun for a day. Give me the moon and just one star."
"Which star do you want?"
The Love-star
"The love-star," she answered, very softly. "Will you keep it shining for me, in spite of clouds and darkness?"
"Indeed I will."
The horses stopped at Barbara's door. Allan went across the street to call for Roger and Eloise went in to invite Barbara to go for a drive.
"How lovely you look," cried Barbara, in admiration. "You look like a bride."
"Make yourself look bridal also," suggested Eloise, flushing, "by putting on your best white gown. Roger is coming, too."
Barbara missed the point entirely. It did not take her long to get ready, and she sang happily to herself while she was dressing. She put a white lace scarf of her mother's over her golden hair, which was now piled high on her shapely head, and started out, for the first time in all her twenty-two years, for a journey beyond the limits of her own domain.
Allan and Roger helped her in. She was very awkward about it, and was sufficiently impressed with her awkwardness to offer a laughing apology. "I've never been in a carriage before," she said, "nor seen a train, nor even a church. All I've had is picturesand books—and Roger," she added, as an afterthought, when he took his place beside her on the back seat.
"You're going to see lots of things to-day that you never saw before," observed Allan, starting the horses toward the hill road. "We'll begin by showing you a church, and then a wedding."
"A wedding!" cried Barbara. "Who is going to be married?"
"We," he replied, concisely. "Don't you think it's time?"
"Isn't it sudden?" asked Roger. "I thought you weren't going to be married until almost Christmas."
"I've been serving time now for two years," explained Allan, "and she's given me two months off for good behaviour. Just remember, young man, when your turn comes, that nothing is sudden when you've been waiting for it all your life."
The Little White Church
The door of the little white church was open and the sun that streamed through the door and the stained glass windows carried the glory and the radiance of Autumn into every nook and corner of it. At the altar burned two tall taper lights, and the young minister, in white vestments, was waiting.
The joking mood was still upon Allan and Eloise, but she requested in all seriousnessthat the word "obey" be omitted from the ceremony.
"Why?" asked the minister, gravely.
"Because I don't want to promise anything I don't intend to do."
"Put it in for me," suggested Allan, cheerfully. "I might as well promise, for I'll have to do it anyway."
Gradually, the hush and solemnity of the church banished the light mood. A new joy, deeper, and more lasting, took the place of laughter as they sat in the front pew, reading over the service. Barbara and Roger sat together, half way down to the door. Neither had spoken since they entered the church.
A shaft of golden light lay full upon Eloise's face. In that moment, before they went to the altar, Allan was afraid of her, she seemed so angelic, so unreal. But the minister was waiting, with his open book. "Come," said Allan, in a whisper, and she rose, smiling, to follow him, not only then, but always.