And So They Were Married

And So They Were Married

"'It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own, too, my dear'" (p. 126)

And So They Were

Married

By

Florence Morse Kingsley

Author of "Titus," "The

Singular Miss Smith," "The

Resurrection of Miss Cynthia"

With Illustrations

By W. B. King

New York

Dodd, Mead & Company

1908

Copyright, 1908

By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

Copyright, 1908

By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Dr. North's wife, attired in her dressing-gown and slippers, noiselessly tilted the shutter of the old-fashioned inside blind and peered cautiously out. The moon was shining splendidly in the dark sky, and the empty street seemed almost as light as day. It had been snowing earlier in the evening, Mrs. North observed absent-mindedly, and the clinging drifts weighed the dark evergreens on either side of the gate almost to the ground. A dog barked noisily from his kennel in a neighbouring yard, and a chorus of answering barks acknowledged the signal; some one was coming along the moonlit street. There were two figures, as Mrs. North had expected; she craned her plump neck anxiously forward as the gate clicked and a light girlish laugh floated up on the frosty air.

"Dear, dear!" she murmured, "I do hope Bessie will come right into the house. It is too cold to stand outside talking."

Apparently the young persons below did not think so. They stood in the bright moonlight in full view of the anxious watcher behind the shutter, the man's tall figure bent eagerly toward the girl, whose delicate profile Mrs. North could see distinctly under the coquettish sweep of the broad hat-brim.

"The child ought to have worn her high overshoes," she was thinking, when she was startled by the vision of the tall, broad figure stooping over the short, slight one.

Then the key clicked in the lock and the front door opened softly; the sound was echoed by the closing gate, as the tall figure tramped briskly away over the creaking snow. The neighbour's dog barked again, perfunctorily this time, as if acknowledging the entire respectability of the passer-by; all the other dogs in town responded in kind, and again there was silence broken only by the sound of a light foot on the carpeted stair.

Mrs. North opened her door softly. "Is that you, Bessie?"

"Yes, mother."

"Isn't it very late, child?"

"It is only half past eleven."

"Did Louise go with you?"

"No, mother; she had a sore throat, and it was snowing; so her aunt wouldn't allow her to go."

"Oh!" Mrs. North's voice expressed a faint disapproval.

"Of course we couldn't help it; besides, all the other girls were there just with their escorts. You and grandma are so—old-fashioned. I'm sure I don't see why I always have to have some other girl along—and Louise Glenny of all persons! I couldn't help being just a little bit glad that she couldn't go."

"Did you have a nice time, dear?"

The girl turned a radiant face upon her mother. "Oh, we had a lovely time!" she murmured. "I—I'll tell you about it to-morrow. Is father home?"

"Yes; he came in early to-night and went right to bed. I hope the telephone bell won't ring again before morning."

The girl laughed softly. "You might take off the receiver," she suggested. "Poor daddy!"

"Oh, no; I couldn't do that. Your father would never forgive me. But I told him not to have it on his mind; I'll watch out for it and answer it, and if it's Mrs. Salter again with one of her imaginary sinking spells I'm going to tell her the doctor won't be in before six in the morning. I do hope it isn't wrong to deceive that much; but your father isn't made of iron, whatever some people may think."

The girl laughed again, a low murmur of joy. "Good-night, dear little mother," she said caressingly. "You are always watching and waiting for some one; aren't you? But you needn't have worried about me." She stooped and kissed her mother, her eyes shining like stars; then hurried away to hide the blush which swept her face and neck.

"Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. North, as she crept back to her couch drawn close to the muffled telephone, "I suppose I ought to have spoken to her father before this; but he is always so busy; I hardly have time to say two words to him. Besides, he thinks Bessie is only a child, and he would have laughed at me."

The girl was taking off her hat and cloak in her own room. How long ago it seemed since she had put them on. She smoothed out her white gloves with caressing fingers. "I shall always keep them," she thought. She was still conscious of his first kisses, and looked in her glass, as if half expecting to see some visible token of them.

"I am so happy—so happy!" she murmured to the radiant reflection which smiled back at her from out its shadowy depths. She leaned forward and touched the cold smooth surface with her lips in a sudden passion of gratitude for the fair, richly tinted skin, the large bright eyes with their long curling lashes, the masses of brown waving hair, and the pliant beauty of the strong young figure in the mirror.

"If I had been freckled and stoop-shouldered and awkward, like Louise Glenny, he couldn't have loved me," she was thinking.

She sank to her knees after awhile and buried her face in the coverlid of her little bed. But she could think only of the look in his eyes when he had said "I love you," and of the thrilling touch of his lips on hers. She crept into bed and lay there in a wide-eyed rapture, while the village clock struck one, and after a long, blissful hour, two. Then she fell asleep, and did not hear the telephone bell which called her tired father from his bed in the dim, cold hour between three and four.

She was still rosily asleep and dreaming when Mrs. North came softly into the room in the broad sunlight of the winter morning.

"Isn't Lizzie awake yet?" inquired a brisk voice from the hall. "My, my! but girls are idle creatures nowadays!"

The owner of the voice followed this dictum with a quick patter of softly shod feet.

"I didn't like to call her, mother," apologised Mrs. North. "She came in late, and——"

Grandmother Carroll pursed up her small, wise mouth. "I heard her," she said, "and that young man with her. I don't know, daughter, but what we ought to inquire into his prospects and character a little more carefully, if he's to be allowed to come here so constant. Lizzie's very young, and——"

"Oh, grandma!" protested a drowsy voice from the pillows; "I'm twenty!"

"Twenty; yes, I know you're twenty, my dear; quite old enough, I should say, to be out of bed before nine in the morning."

"It wasn't her fault, mother; I didn't call her."

The girl was gazing at the two round matronly figures at the foot of the bed, her laughing eyes grown suddenly serious. "I'll get up at once," she said with decision, "and I'll eat bread and milk for breakfast; I sha'n't mind."

"She's got something on her mind," whispered Mrs. North to her mother, as the two pattered softly downstairs.

"I shouldn't wonder," responded Grandmother Carroll briskly. "Girls of her age are pretty likely to have, and I mistrust but what that young Bowser may have been putting notions into her head. I hope you'll be firm with her, daughter; she's much too young for anything of that sort."

"You were married when you were eighteen, mother; and I was barely twenty, you know."

"I was a very different girl at eighteen from what Lizzie is," Mrs. Carroll said warmly. "She's been brought up differently. In my time healthy girls didn't lie in bed till ten o'clock. Many and many's the time I've danced till twelve o'clock and been up in the morning at five 'tending to my work. You indulge Lizzie too much; and if that young Bixler——"

"His name is Brewster, mother; don't you remember? and they say he comes of a fine old Boston family."

"Well, Brewster or Bixler; it will make no difference to Lizzie, you'll find. I've been watching her for more than a month back, and I'll tell you, daughter, when a girl like Lizzie offers to eat bread and milk for breakfast you can expect almost anything. Her mind is on other things. I'll never forget the way you ate a boiled egg for breakfast every morning for a week—and you couldn't bear eggs—about the time the doctor was getting serious. I mistrusted there was something to pay, and I wasn't mistaken."

Mrs. North sighed vaguely. Then her tired brown eyes lighted up with a smile. "I had letters from both the boys this morning," she said; "don't you want to read them, mother? Frank has passed all his mid-year examinations, and Elliot says he has just made the 'varsity gym' team."

"Made the what?"

"I don't quite understand myself," acknowledged Mrs. North; "but that's what he said. He said he'd have his numerals to show us when he came home Easter."

"Hum!" murmured Mrs. Carroll dubiously; "I'm sure I hope he won't break his neck in any foolish way. Did he say anything about his lessons?"

"Not much; he never was such a student as Frank; but he'll do well, mother."

Elizabeth North, fresh as a dewy rose and radiant with her new happiness, came into the room just as Mrs. Carroll folded the last sheet of the college letters. "I'll ask Lizzie," she said. "Lizzie, what is a g-y-m team?"

"Oh, grandma!" protested the girl, "please don't call me Lizzie. Bessie is bad enough; but Lizzie! I always think of that absurd old Mother Goose rhyme, 'Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betsey and Bess, all went hunting to find a bird's nest'; and, besides, you promised me you wouldn't."

"Lizzie was a good enough name for your mother," said grandma briskly. "Your father courted and married her under that name, and he didn't mind." Her keen old eyes behind their shining glasses dwelt triumphantly on the girl's changing colour. "You needn't tell me!" she finished irrelevantly.

But Elizabeth had possessed herself of the letters, and was already deep in a laughing perusal of Elliot's scrawl. "Oh, how splendid!" she cried; "he's made the Varsity, on his ring work, too!"

"I don't pretend to understand what particular work Elliot is referring to," observed grandma, with studied mildness. "Is it some sort of mathematics?"

Elizabeth sprang up and flung both arms about the smiling old lady. "You dear little hypocritical grandma!" she said; "you know perfectly well that it isn't any study at all, but just gymnastic work—all sorts of stunts, swinging on rings and doing back and front levers and shoulder stands and all that sort of thing. Elliot has such magnificent muscles he can do anything, and better than any one else, and that's why he's on the varsity, you see!"

"Thank you, Elizabeth," said grandma tranquilly. "I'd entirely forgotten that young men don't go to college now to study their lessons. My memory is certainly getting poor."

"No, grandma dear; it isn't. You remember everything a thousand times better than any one else, and what is more, you know it. But of course Elliot studies; he has to. Mr. Brewster says he thinks Elliot is one of the finest boys he knows. He thinks he would make a splendid engineer. He admires Frank, too, immensely, and——"

"What does the young man think of Elizabeth?" asked Mrs. Carroll with a wise smile.

"He—oh, grandma; I—didn't mean to tell just yet; but he—I——"

"There, there, child! Better go and find your mother. I mistrust she's getting you a hot breakfast." She drew the girl into her soft old arms and kissed her twice.

Elizabeth sprang up all in a lovely flame of blushes and ran out of the room.

CHAPTER II

When Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S. and Civil Engineer, late of the Massachusetts School of Technology, came to Innisfield for the purpose of joining the corps of engineers already at work on a new and improved system of water-works, he had not the slightest intention of falling seriously in love. By "seriously" Sam Brewster himself might have told you—as he told his married sister living in Saginaw, Mich., and anxiously solicitous of the young man's general well-being—that he meant that sort and quality of affection which would naturally and inevitably lead a man into matrimony. He had always been fond of the society of pretty and amiable women, and well used to it, too. His further ideas with regard to matrimony, though delightfully vague in their general character, were sufficiently clear-cut and decided in one important particular, which he had been careful to expound at length to those impetuous undergraduates of his fraternity who had appeared to need friendly counsel from their elders. "A man," said young Brewster, conclusively, "has no business to marry till he can feel solid ground under his feet. He should be thoroughly established in his profession, and well able to pay the shot."

When this sapient young gentleman first met Elizabeth North at a picnic given by the leading citizens of Innisfield to celebrate the completion of the new aqueduct he was disposed to regard her as a very nice, intelligent sort of a girl, with remarkably handsome brown eyes. On the occasion of his third meeting with the young lady he found himself, rather to his surprise, telling her about his successful work in the "Tech," and of how he hoped to "get somewhere" in his profession some day. Elizabeth in her turn had confided to him her disappointment in not being able to go to Wellesley, and her ambitious attempts to keep up with Marian Evans, who was in the Sophomore year, in literature and music. She played Chopin's Fantasia Impromptu for him on Mrs. North's garrulous old piano; and as her slender fingers twinkled over the yellow keys he caught himself wondering how much a first-class instrument would cost. In the course of a month he had fallen into the habit of strolling home with Elizabeth after church, and twice Mrs. North, in the kindness of her motherly heart, had asked him to dinner. She was afraid, she told Grandma Carroll, that the table board at Mrs. Bentwick's was none of the best. She spoke of him further as "that nice, good-looking boy," and hoped he wouldn't be too lonely in Innisfield, away from all his friends.

As for Dr. North, that overworked physician was seldom to be seen, being apparently in a chronic state of hastily and energetically climbing into his gig, and as energetically and hastily climbing out again. He had hurriedly shaken hands with young Brewster, and made him welcome to his house in one of the brief intervals between office hours and the ever-waiting gig, with its imperturbable brown horse, who appeared to know quite as well as the doctor where the sick were to be found. After that, it is fair to state, the worthy doctor had completely forgotten that such a person as Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S., C.E. existed. One may judge therefore of his feelings when his wife chose a moment of relaxation between a carefully cooked dinner and an expected summons by telephone to acquaint him with the fact of their daughter's engagement.

"Engaged?" exclaimed the doctor, starting out of his chair. "Bess—engaged! Oh, I guess not. I sha'n't allow anything of the sort; she's nothing but a child, and as for this young fellow—what 'd you say his name was? We don't know him!"

"You don't, you mean, papa," his wife corrected him gently. "The rest of us have seen a good deal of Mr. Brewster, and I'm sure Bessie——"

"'Oh, daddy, he's the dearest person in the world!'"

"Now, mother, what made you? I wanted to tell daddy myself. Oh, daddy, he's the dearest person in the world!" Then as Elizabeth caught the hurt, bewildered look in her father's eyes she perched on his knee in the old familiar fashion. "It seems sudden—to you, I know," she murmured; "but really it isn't, daddy; as he will tell you if he can ever find you at home to talk to. Why, we've known each other since last summer!"

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid, child; but I don't believe I understand. You don't mean to tell me that you have been thinking of—of getting married and to a man I don't know even." Dr. North shook his head decidedly.

"But you do know him, daddy; he's been here ever so many times. Of course"—she added with a touch of laughing malice—"he's perfectly well, and you seldom notice well people, even when they're in your own family."

"I don't have time, Bess," admitted the doctor soberly, "there are too many of the other sort. But now about this young man—Brewster—eh? You have him come 'round in office hours, say, and I'll——"

"Now, daddy, please don't straighten out your mouth like that; it isn't a bit becoming. Naturally you've got the sweetest, kindest look in the world, and you mustn't spoil it, especially when you are talking about Sam."

The doctor pinched his daughter's pink ear. "I'm sorry to appear such an ogre," he said with a touch of grimness, "but I know too much about the world in general, and the business of getting married in particular, to allow my one daughter to go into it blindly. I'll be obliged to make the young man's further acquaintance, Bess, before we talk about an engagement."

The girl's scarlet lips were set in firm lines, which strongly resembled the paternal expression to which she had objected; she kissed her father dutifully. "I want you to get acquainted with him, daddy," she said sweetly; "but we are engaged."

That same afternoon Dr. North, looking worried and anxious after a prolonged conference with the village hypochrondriac, who had come to the office fully charged with symptoms of a new and distinguished disease lately imported from Europe, found himself face to face with a tall, fresh-faced young man. This new visitor came into the office bringing with him a breath of the wintry air and a general appearance of breezy health which caused the hypochondriac to look up sourly in the act of putting on her rubbers.

"If that new medicine doesn't relieve that terrible feelin' in my epigastrium, doctor—an' I don't believe it's a-goin' to—I'll let you know," she remarked acidly. "You needn't be surprised to be called most any time between now an' mornin'; for, as I told Mr. Salter, I ain't a-goin' to suffer as I did last night for nobody."

"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Salter," said the doctor emphatically. "Now then, young man, what can I do for you?"

The young man in question coloured boyishly. "I shouldn't have ventured to call upon you during your office hours, Dr. North; but I understood from Elizabeth that you could be seen at no other time; so I'm here."

"Elizabeth—eh? Yes, yes; I see. I—er—didn't recall your face for the moment. Just come into my private office for a minute or two, Mr. Brewster; these—er—other patients will wait a bit, I fancy."

The worthy doctor handed his visitor a chair facing the light, which he further increased by impatiently shoving the shades to the top of the windows. Then he seated himself and stared keenly at the young engineer, who on his part bore the scrutiny with a sturdy self-possession which pleased the doctor in spite of himself.

"Elizabeth told you of our engagement, I believe, sir?"

"'I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an engagement between you at present'"

"She told me something of the sort—yes," admitted the doctor testily. "I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an engagement between you at present. Did she tell you that?"

"I was told that you wished to make my further acquaintance. I should like, if you have the time, to tell you something about myself. You have the right to know."

The doctor nodded frowningly. "If you expect me—at any time in the future, you understand—to give you my only daughter, I certainly am entitled to know—everything."

The young man looked the doctor squarely in the eyes during the longish pause that followed. "There isn't much to tell," he said. "My father and mother are dead. I have one sister, older than I, married to one of the best fellows in the world and living West. I made my home with them till I came to the Tech. You can ask any of the professors there about me. They'll tell you that I worked. I graduated a year ago last June. Since then I've been at work at my profession. I'm getting twelve hundred a year now; but——"

"Stop right there. Why did you ask my girl to marry you?"

"Because I loved her."

"Hum! And she—er—fancies that she loves you—eh?"

A dark flush swept over Samuel Brewster's ingenuous young face. "She does love me," was all he said. But he said it in a tone which suddenly brought back the older man's vanished youth.

There was a short silence; then the doctor arose so abruptly that he nearly upset his chair. "Well," he said, "I've got to go to Boston to-morrow on a case, and I'll see those professors of yours, for one thing; I know Collins well. Not that he or anybody else can tell me all about you—not by a long shot; I know boys and young men well enough for that. But you see, sir, I—love my girl too, and I—I'll say good-afternoon, sir."

He threw the door wide with an impatient hand. "Ah, Mrs. Tewksbury; you're next, I believe. Walk right in."

An hour later, when the door had finally closed on his last patient, Dr. North sat still in his chair, apparently lost in thought. His dinner was waiting, he knew, and a round of visits must be made immediately thereafter, yet he did not stir. He was thinking, curiously enough, of the time when his daughter Elizabeth was a baby. What a round, pink little face she had, to be sure, and what a strong, healthy, plump little body. He could almost hear the unsteady feet toddling across the breadth of dingy oilcloth which carpeted his office floor. "Daddy, daddy!" her sweet, imperious voice was crying, "I'm tomin' to see you, daddy!"

His eyes were wet when he finally stumbled to his feet. Then suddenly he felt a pair of warm arms about his neck, and a dozen butterfly kisses dropped on his cheeks, his hair, his forehead. "Daddy, dear, he came; didn't he? I saw him go away. I hope you weren't—cruel to him, oh, daddy!"

"No, daughter; I wasn't exactly cruel to him. But didn't the young man stop to talk it over with you?"

"No, daddy; I thought he would of course; but he just waved his hand for good-bye, and I—was frightened for fear——"

"Didn't stop to talk it over—eh? Say, I like that! To tell you the truth, Bess, I—rather like him. Good, clear, steady eyes; good all 'round constitution, I should say; and if—Oh, come, come, child; we'd better be getting in to dinner or your mother will be anxious. But I want you to understand, miss, that your old daddy has no notion of playing second fiddle to any youngster's first, however tall and good-looking he may be."

And singularly enough, Elizabeth appeared to be perfectly satisfied with this paternal dictum. "I knew you'd like him," she said, slipping her small hand into her father's big one, in the little girl fashion she had never lost. "Why, daddy, he's the best man I ever knew—except you, of course. He told me"—the girl's voice dropped to an awed whisper—"that he promised his mother when she was dying that he would never do a mean or dishonest thing. And—and he says, daddy, that whenever he has been tempted to do wrong he has felt his mother's eyes looking at him, so that he couldn't. Anybody would know he was good just from seeing him."

"Hum! Well, well, that may be so. I'll talk to Collins and see what he has to say. Collins is a man of very good judgment; I value his opinion highly."

"Don't you value mine, daddy?" asked Elizabeth, with an irresistible dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of her mouth.

"On some subjects, my dear," replied the doctor soberly; "but—er—on this particular one I fancy you may be slightly prejudiced."

CHAPTER III

The question of "wherewithal shall we be clothed," which has vexed the world since its beginning in the garden "planted eastward in Eden," confronts the children of Eve so persistently at every serious crisis of life that one is forced to the conclusion that clothes sustain a very real and vital relation to destiny. Even Solomon in all his glory must earnestly have considered the colour and texture of his famous robes of state when he was making ready to dazzle the eyes of the Queen of Sheba, and the Jewish Esther's royal apparel and Joseph's coat of many colours played important parts in the history of a nation.

Elizabeth North had been engaged to be married to Samuel Brewster exactly a fortnight when the age-long question presented itself to her attention. It was perhaps inevitable that she should have thought speculatively of her wedding gown; what girl would not? But in the sweet amaze of her new and surprising happiness she might have gone on wearing her simple girlish frocks quite unaware of its relation to her wardrobe. She owed her awakening to Miss Evelyn Tripp.

Elizabeth had known Evelyn Tripp in a distant fashion suited to the great gulf which appeared to exist between the fashionable lady from Boston, who was in the habit of paying semi-annual visits to Innisfield, and the young daughter of the country doctor. She had always regarded Miss Tripp as the epitome of all possible elegance, and vaguely associated her with undreamed-of festivities and privileges peculiar to the remote circles in which she moved when absent from Innisfield.

Miss Tripp explained her presence in the quiet village after one formula which had grown familiar to every one. "I was completely worn out, my dear; I've just run away from a perfect whirl of receptions, teas, luncheons and musicales; really, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when my physician simply insisted upon my leaving it all. I do find dear, quiet Innisfield so relaxing after the social strain."

Miss Tripp's heavily italicised remarks were invariably accompanied by uplifted eyebrows, and a sweetly serious expression, alternating with flashing glimpses of very white teeth, and further accented by numberless little movements of her hands and shoulders which suggested deeper meanings than her words often conveyed.

Ill-natured people, such as Mrs. Buckthorn and Electa Pratt, declared that Evelyn Tripp was thirty-five if she was a day, though she dressed like sixteen; and furthermore that her social popularity in Boston was a figment of her own vivid imagination. Elizabeth North, however, had always admired her almost reverently, in the shy, distant fashion of the young, country-bred girl.

Miss Tripp was unquestionably elegant, and her smart gowns and the large picture hats she affected had created quite their usual sensation in Innisfield, where the slow-spreading ripples of fashion were viewed with a certain stern disfavour as being linked in some vague manner with irreligion of a dangerous sort. "She's too stylish to be good for much," being the excellent Mrs. Buckthorn's severe corollary.

Miss Tripp had been among the first to press friendly congratulations upon young Brewster, who on his part received them with the engaging awkwardness of the unaccustomed bachelor.

"You are certainly the most fortunate of men to have won that sweet, simple Elizabeth North! I've known her since she was quite a child—since we were both children, in fact, and she was always the same unspoiled, unaffected girl, so different from the young women one meets in society circles."

"She's all of that," quoth the fortunate engineer, vaguely aware of a lack of flavour in Miss Tripp's encomium, "and—er—more."

Whereat Miss Tripp laughed archly and playfully shook a daintily gloved finger at him. "I can see that you think no one is capable of appreciating your prize; but I assure you I do! You shall see!" This last was a favourite phrase, and conveyed quite an alluring sense of mystery linked with vague promise of unstinted benevolences on the part of Miss Tripp. "Do you know," she added seriously, "I am told that you are closely related to Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser. She is a wonderful woman, so prominent in the best circles and interested in so many important charities."

Samuel Brewster shook his head. "The relationship is hardly worth mentioning," he said. "Mrs. Van Duser was a distant relative of my mother's."

"But of course you see a great deal of her when you are in Boston; do you not?" persisted the lady.

"I dined there once," acknowledged the young man, vaguely uneasy and rather too obviously anxious to make his escape, "but I dare say she has forgotten my existence by this time. Mrs. Van Duser is, as you say, a very—er—active woman."

On the following day Elizabeth North encountered Miss Tripp on the street. She was about to pass her after a shy salutation, when Miss Tripp held out both hands in a pretty, impulsive gesture. "I was just on my way to see you, dear; but if you are going out, of course I'll wait till another day. My dear, he's simply perfect! and I really couldn't wait to tell you so. Do tell me when you are to be married? In June, I hope, for then I shall be here to help."

Elizabeth blushed prettily, her shy gaze taking in the details of Miss Tripp's modish costume. She was wondering if a jacket made like the one Miss Tripp was wearing would be becoming. "I—we haven't thought so far ahead as that," she said. Then with a sudden access of her new dignity. "Mr. Brewster expects to return to Boston in the spring. The work here will be finished by that time."

Miss Tripp's eyes brightened with a speculative gleam. "Oh, then you will live in Boston! How delighted I am to hear that! Did you know your fiancé is related to Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser? and that he has dined there? You didn't? But of course you must have heard of Mrs. Van Duser; I believe your minister's wife is a relative of hers. But Mrs. Van Duser doesn't approve of Mrs. Pettibone, I'm told; her opinions are so odd. But I am so glad for you, my dear; if everything is managed properly you will have an entrée to the most exclusive circles." Miss Tripp's eyebrows and shoulders expressed such unfeigned interest and delight in her prospects that Elizabeth beamed and smiled in her turn. She wished confusedly that Miss Tripp would not talk to her about her engagement; it was too sacred, too wonderful a thing to discuss on the street with a mere acquaintance like Miss Tripp. Yet all the while she was rosily conscious of her new ring, which she could feel under her glove, and a childish desire to uncover its astonishing brilliancy before such warmly appreciative eyes presently overcame her desire to escape. "Won't you walk home with me?" she asked; "mother will be so glad to see you."

"Oh, thank you! Indeed I was coming to condole with your dear mother and to wish you all sorts of happiness. I've so often spoken of you to my friends in Boston."

Elizabeth wondered what Miss Tripp could possibly have said about her to her friends in Boston. But she was assured by Miss Tripp's brilliant smile that it had been something agreeable. When she came into the room after removing her hat and cloak she found her mother deep in conversation with the visitor, who made room for her on the sofa with a smile and a graceful tilt of her plumed head.

"We've been talking about you every minute, dear child. You'll see what a sweet wedding you'll have. Everything must be of the very latest; and it isn't a minute too soon to begin on your trousseau. You really ought to have everything hand-embroidered, you know; those flimsy laces and machine-made edges are so common, you won't think of them; and they don't wear a bit well, either."

Mrs. North glanced appealingly at her daughter. "Oh," she said, in a bewildered tone, "I guess Elizabeth isn't intending to be married for a long, long time yet; I—we can't spare her."

Miss Tripp laughed airily. "Poor mamma," she murmured with a look of deep sympathy, "it is too bad; isn't it? But, really, I'm sure you're to be congratulated on your future son-in-law. He belongs to a very aristocratic family—Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser is a relative, you know; and dear Betty must have everything suitable. I'll do some pretty things, dear; I'd love to, and I'll begin this very day, though the doctor has absolutely forbidden me to use my eyes; but I simply can't resist the temptation."

Then she had exclaimed over the sparkle of Elizabeth's modest diamond, which caught her eyes at the moment, and presently in a perfumed rush of silken skirts and laces and soft furs Miss Tripp swept away, chatting to the outermost verge of the frosty air in her sweet-toned drawling voice, so different from the harsh nasal accents familiar to Innisfield ears.

Elizabeth drew a deep breath as she watched the slim, erect figure move lightly away. She felt somehow very ignorant and countrified and totally unfit for her high destiny as a member of Boston's select circles. As a result of these unwonted stirrings in her young heart she went up to her room and began to look over her wardrobe with growing dissatisfaction.

Her mother hearing the sound of opening and shutting drawers came into the room and stood looking on with what appeared to the girl a provokingly indifferent expression on her plump middle-aged face.

"It is really too soon to begin worrying about wedding clothes, Bessie," observed Mrs. North with a show of maternal authority. "Of course"—after a doubtful silence—"we might begin to make up some new underclothes. I've a good firm piece of cotton in the house, and we can buy some edges."

The girl suddenly faced her mother, her pink lips thrust forward in an unbecoming pout. "Why, mother," she said, "don't you know people don't wear things made out of common cotton cloth now; everything has to be as fine and delicate as a cobweb almost, and—hand-embroidered. You can make them or buy them in the stores. Marian had some lovely things when she went to college. All the girls wear them—except me. Of course I've never had anything of the sort; but I suppose I'll have to now!"

She shut her bureau drawer with an air of finality and leaned her puckered forehead upon her hand while the new diamond flashed its blue and white fires into her mother's perplexed eyes.

"We'll do the very best we can, dear," Mrs. North said after a lengthening pause; "but your father's patients don't pay their bills very promptly, and there are the boys' college expenses to be met; we'll have to think of that."

This conversation marked the beginning of many interviews, gradually increasing in poignant interest to both mother and daughter. It appeared that "Sam," as Elizabeth now called her lover with a pretty hesitancy which the young man found adorable, wished to be married in June, so as to take his bride with him on a trip West, in which business and pleasure might be profitably combined.

Mrs. North demurred weakly; but Dr. North was found to be on the side of the young man. "I don't believe in long engagements myself," he had said, with a certain suspicious gruffness in his tones. "I hoped we should have our daughter to ourselves for a while longer; but she's chosen otherwise, and there is no use and no need to wait. We'll have to let her go, wife, and the sooner the better, for both of them."

The important question being thus finally decided, not only Miss Tripp but the Norths' whole circle of acquaintances in Innisfield, as well as the female relations, near and far, were found ready and anxious to engage heart and soul in Elizabeth's preparations for her wedding, which had now begun in what might be well termed solemn earnest.

"Are we going to—keep house?" Elizabeth asked her lover in the first inrush of this new tide of experience which was soon to bear her far from the old life.

"To keep house, dear, with you would be pretty close to my idea of heaven," the young man had declared with all the fervour of the inexperienced bachelor. "I've boarded for nearly six years now with barely a taste of home between whiles, and I'm tired of it. Don't you want to keep house, dear?"

And Elizabeth answered quite sweetly and truly that she did. "I can cook," she said, proud of her old-fashioned accomplishment in the light of her new happiness. "We will have just a little house to begin with, and then I can do everything."

But a suitable house of any size in Boston was found to be quite out of the question. "It will have to be an apartment, my dear," the experienced Miss Tripp declared; "and I believe I know the very one in a really good neighbourhood. I'll write at once. You mustn't think of South Boston, even if it is more convenient for Mr. Brewster. It is so important to begin right; and you know, my dear, you couldn't expect any one to come to see you in South Boston."

Mrs. Carroll, who chanced to be present, was observed to compress her lips firmly. "Lizzie," she said, when the fashionable Miss Tripp had finally taken her departure, after much voluble advice on the subject of the going-away gown, coupled with a spirited discussion of the rival merits of a church wedding and "just a pretty, simple home affair," "if I were you I shouldn't let that Evelina Kipp decide everything for me. You'd better make up your mind what you want to do, and what you can afford to do, and then do it without asking her leave. It seems to me her notions are extravagant and foolish."

"Why, grandma!" pouted Elizabeth. "I think it is perfectly dear of Miss Tripp to take such an interest in my wedding. I shouldn't have known what to do about lots of things, and I'm sure you and mother haven't an idea." The girl's pretty lips curled and she moved her slim shoulders gently.

"Your mother and I both managed to get married without Miss Fripp's advice," retorted grandma tranquilly. "I may not have an 'idea,' as you call it, but I can't see why you should have ruffled silk petticoats to all your dresses. One good moreen skirt did me, with a quilted alpaca for every-day wear and two white ones for best. And as for a dozen sets of underclothes, that won't wear once they see the washtub, they look foolish to me. More than all that, your father can't afford it, and you ought to consider him."

Elizabeth looked up with a worried pucker between her girlish brows. "I don't see how I am going to help it, grandma," she sighed; "I really must have suitable clothes."

"I agree with you there, Lizzie," said Mrs. Carroll, eyeing her granddaughter keenly over the top of her spectacles; "but you aren't going to have them, if you let that Sipp girl tell you what to buy."

"It isn't Sipp, grandma, it's Tripp. T-r-i-p-p," said Elizabeth, in a long-suffering tone; "and she knows better than any one in Innisfield possibly can what I am going to need in Boston."

"You'll find the people in Boston won't take any particular interest in your petticoats, Lizzie," her grandmother told her pointedly. But the girl had spied her lover coming up the walk toward the house and had flown to meet him.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" asked the young man, examining his treasure with the keen eyes of love. "You look tired and—er—worried. Anything wrong, little girl?"

"N-no," denied Elizabeth evasively. "Only grandma has such queer, old-fashioned ideas about—clothes. And she thinks I ought to have just what she had when she was married to grandfather fifty years ago. Of course I want to have everything nice and—suitable for Boston, you know."

"What you are wearing now is pretty enough for anywhere," declared Sam Brewster, with masculine obtuseness. "Don't you bother one minute about clothes, darling; you'd look lovely in anything."

Then he kissed her faintly smiling lips with the fatuous idea that the final word as to wedding finery had been said.

CHAPTER IV

"If you can give me just a minute, Richard, before you go out." It was Mrs. North's timidly apologetic voice which broke in upon her husband's hasty preparations for a day's professional engagements.

Dr. North faced about with a laughing twinkle in his eyes. "I know your minutes, Lizzie," he said, absent-mindedly sniffling at the cork of a half-emptied bottle. "This gentian's no good; I've a mind to ship it back to Avery's and tell them what I think of the firm for selling adulterated drugs. It's an outrage on suffering humanity. I'll write to them anyway." And he began to rummage his desk in quest of stationery.

"I wanted to speak to you about Bessie's things," persisted Mrs. North. "You know you gave me some money for her wedding clothes last month; but it isn't—it won't be nearly enough."

"What on earth have you been buying for the child?" asked her husband. "I should think with what she has already the money I gave you would go quite a ways."

"That's just it," sighed Mrs. North. "Bessie thinks none of the things she has are—suitable." She hesitated a little over the hard-worked word. "Of course living in Boston, and——"

"Pooh! Boston's no different from any other town," put in the doctor. "You tell Bess I said so. She doesn't need to worry about Boston!" He plumped down in his office chair and began an indignant protest addressed to the firm of Avery & Co., Wholesale Druggists and Dealers in Surgical Supplies.

"I haven't bought any of her best dresses yet," sighed Mrs. North; "and she wants an all-over lace for her wedding dress. Miss Tripp says they're very much worn now."

She paused suggestively while the doctor's pen raced busily over his page.

"You didn't hear what I said, did you, Richard?" she ventured after a while.

"Yes, m' dear; heard every word; you were saying you'd bought Bess a lace wedding dress, and that Miss Tripp says they're very much worn," replied her husband, fixing on a stamp with a sounding thump of his big fist. "Glad to hear it. Well, I'll have to be moving now. Good-bye, m' dear; home to dinner if I can; if not——"

"If you could let me have two hundred and fifty dollars, Richard," said Mrs. North rather faintly, "we'll try to manage with that for the present."

"Well, now, Lizzie, when it comes to your wanting anything I always get it for you—if I can; and you know that; but I sent off cheques to Frank and Elliot this morning, and I'm what you'd call strapped."

"Couldn't you collect——"

The doctor kissed his wife cheerfully. "How can I, wifey, when folks leave their doctor's bills till the last cent's paid to everybody else? Don't know as I blame 'em; it's hard enough to be sick without having to pay out money for it; now, isn't it?"

"Oh, Dick; if that isn't just like you! But I—I've thought of a way."

"Good! What is it?"

"We might—borrow some money on the house. Other people do, and——"

"Mortgage our house for wedding finery? I guess you're joking, Lizzie. At any rate, I'll call it a joke and let it pass! Good-bye!" The quick slam of the office door put a conclusive finish to the doctor's words, and his wife went back to her work on one of Elizabeth's elaborate garments with a heavy heart.

"What did Richard say?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, when the girl had gone into another room to be fitted.

"He said he couldn't possibly let me have anything more just now," said Richard's wife with a shade of reserve in her voice. "You know, mother, people are so slow in paying their bills. The doctor has any amount outstanding if he could only get it."

"Such folks had ought to be made to pay before they get 'ary a pill or a powder, same 's they do for what made 'em sick. They'd find money for the doctor quick enough once they had a right sharp pain from over-eating," was grandma's trenchant opinion. "But I expected he'd say that all along, and I wanted to give you this for Lizzie."

She slipped a little roll of bills into her daughter's lap. "Don't say anything to the child about it," she whispered, nodding her kind old head; "it would worry her. Besides I don't approve of the amount of money she's putting into perishable things. I meant to buy her a real good clock or a nice solid piece of furniture; but if she'd rather have lace frills that'll fall to pieces in the washtub, I'm willing she should learn by experience, same 's we've had to do before her."

Mrs. North's eyes were moist and shining. "It's what you've been putting by for years, mother," she whispered, "for——"

"Hush!" said grandma. "I guess when it comes right down to it I'm full as foolish as Lizzie. Once I set foot in the golden streets I know I sha'n't mind whether I leave a marble monument in the cemetery or not; and you don't need to either, daughter. Now remember!"

Upon this hushed conversation entered Elizabeth in a flutter of excitement and rosy pleasure over a letter which the postman had just handed her. "It is from Evelyn Tripp," she said, "and she wants me to come to Boston and stay a week with her; she says she will help me pick out all my dresses, and I'd better have my wedding dress and my going-away gown made there, anyway. Isn't that lovely?"

Then, as she met her mother's dubious gaze, "You know Malvina Bennett hasn't a particle of style; and we don't know anything about the best places to buy things in Boston; or the dressmakers, or anything."

"I've shopped in Boston for years," said Mrs. North, with a show of firmness, "and I'm sure everything at Cooper's gives perfect satisfaction."

"Oh, Cooper's?" laughed the girl. "Why, mother, dear, nobody goes to Cooper's nowadays. It's just for country people from out of town."

"What are we, I'd like to know?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd better do your shopping with your mother, Lizzie; her judgment would likely be quite as good as that Tipp girl's, and more in a line with what you can afford. You should remember that Samuel isn't a rich man, and you'll need good, substantial dresses that'll last. I remember I had a blue Russell-cord poplin when I was married that I wore for fifteen years; then I made it over for your mother, and she looked as pretty as a pink in it for two more; then she outgrew it and I gave it away; but the cloth in it was as good as new. A dress like that pays!"

Elizabeth laughed somewhat impatiently. "I've heard about that wonderful poplin ever since I can remember," she said. "I wonder you didn't save it for me. But I don't want to buy any dresses that will last for fifteen years. I'm sure Sam can buy me more dresses when I want them. I may go to Boston; mayn't I, mother?"

Mrs. North looked wistfully at the pretty, eager face. She had looked forward with pleasure—somewhat tempered, it is true, by the knowledge of her meagre resources, yet still with pleasure—to the choosing of her daughter's wedding gown, with all its dainty accessories of tulle and lace. "I had thought of a silk muslin," she said rather faintly, "or perhaps a cream satin—if you'd like it better, dear, and——"

"I shouldn't like either of those," said the girl decidedly, "and there's so much to do that it will really save time if you don't have to bother with any of that; Evelyn (it was Evelyn and Elizabeth now) says chiffon over liberty satin would be lovely if I can't afford the lace. Of course I wouldn't buy a cheap lace."

That night when Dr. North came home he tossed a handful of bills into his daughter's lap. "For the wedding gown, Bess," he said; "worse luck that you want one!"

"Oh, why do you say that, you darling daddy?" murmured the girl, "when I'm going to be so happy!" She was radiantly happy now, it appeared, and the doctor's keen eyes grew moist as he looked at her.

"Guess I was thinking about myself principally," he confessed gruffly, "and about your mother. We're going to be lonesome; and I—don't like to think of it."

The girl's bright face clouded. "The boys will be at home summers," she said, "and I'll come back to—visit often, you know. I sha'n't be far away, daddy." She clung to him for a minute without a word, a faint realisation of the irrevocable change so near at hand sweeping over her.

"Of course you will, Betsey Jane!" vociferated the doctor, affecting a vast jocularity for the purpose of concealing his feelings, which threatened to become unmanageable. "If you don't show up in Innisfield about once in so often I'll come to Boston with my bag and give that young robber a dose that will make his hair curl."

The next day the bride-elect journeyed to Boston carrying what appeared to her a small fortune in her little hand-bag. "You've all been so good!" she said. "I can just buy everything I need with all this."

Evelyn Tripp met Elizabeth in South Station with open arms. "How well you are looking, you darling!" she exclaimed effusively. "Now if we can only keep those roses through all the shopping and dressmaking. It is so exhausting; but I've everything planned for you down to the last frill, and Madame Pryse has at last consented to make your gowns! If you knew what I've been through with that woman! She simply will not take a new customer; but when I mentioned the fact that you were to marry a nephew of Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser she finally capitulated. I could have embraced her!"

"But Sam isn't Mrs. Van Duser's nephew, Evelyn. I believe his mother was Mrs. Van Duser's second cousin."

"Oh, well, that doesn't signify. I'm sure, I had to say something convincing, and Mrs. Van Duser was my dernier resort. Pryse will do anything for you now, you'll see, my dear! And, oh, Betty dear, when I was in at Altford's yesterday I just chanced upon the most wonderful bargain in a lace robe, and had it sent up on approval. The most exquisite thing, and marked down from a hundred and twenty-seven dollars to—what do you think?—only eighty-nine, fifty! I was so pleased; for I am sure it is just what you want. I got samples, too, of the most bewitching silks for your dinner gown—you must have at least one, you know, a simple, pretty crêpe de chine or something of the sort; and then with a little frock or two for luncheons and card parties, your tailor-made—that must be good—and your wedding gown for evening affairs you will do nicely."

"But, Evelyn," interrupted Elizabeth timidly, "I'm afraid I can't— You know I didn't expect to buy but two dresses in Boston. Malvina Bennett is making me a black silk, and——"

Miss Tripp paused to smile and bow at a passing acquaintance; then she turned protesting eyes upon the girl. "You dear child," she murmured, "you're not to worry about a single thing. That's just what I mean to spare you. I am determined you shall have just what you are going to need; and if you haven't enough money with you, I can arrange everything at Altford's without a bit of trouble; and of course you will pay Pryse her bill when it is perfectly convenient for you. She doesn't expect to be paid promptly. Really, I don't believe she would have a particle of respect for a patron who insisted upon paying for a gown the minute it was finished. First-class modistes and milliners, too, are all that way; they know better than to send their bills too soon. So that needn't bother you, dear; and of course Pryse finds everything, which will save enormously on your outlay."

Elizabeth felt very meek and hopelessly countrified as she laid off her wraps in Miss Tripp's rather stuffy but ornate little apartment. Mrs. Tripp, a faded, apologetic person smelling of rice-powder and sachet, smiled vaguely upon her and murmured something about "Evy's wonderful taste!"

One thing at least was clear to Elizabeth as she lay wide-eyed in the darkness that night, after an evening spent in the confusing examination and comparison of fashion-plates and samples, and that was the conviction that the "fortune" with which she had joyfully set forth that morning had dwindled to a pitiful insufficiency before the multiplied necessities imposed upon it by Miss Tripp's undeniable taste and knowledge.

She almost wished she had chosen to do her shopping with her mother and Grandma Carroll, as she realised that she would be obliged to write home for more money. But it was too late to change her mind now; and, after all, Evelyn knew best as to what a bride about to move in polite circles in Boston would require. She went to sleep at last and dreamed of standing up to be married in a Russell-cord poplin (whatever that wonderful fabric might be) which had already done duty for fifteen years, and was "as good as new."

CHAPTER V

As the twenty-first day of June drew on apace, Fate, in the slim, active personality of Miss Evelyn Tripp, appeared to have taken the entire North household firmly in hand. Events marched on in orderly, if surprising sequence, beginning with the issuing of the invitations bearing the name of Boston's most expensive firm of engravers on the flap of the inner envelope.

"Every one looks for that the very first thing," Miss Tripp had announced conclusively; "and one simply couldn't have the name of a department store or a cheap engraver!" The correct Miss Tripp shuddered at the awful picture.

"But these are so much more expensive than I had expected," demurred Mrs. North, with a worried sigh. "I had intended ordering them at Cooper's; they do them just as well there. Don't they sometimes leave off the name?"

Miss Tripp bestowed a pitying smile upon the questioner. "Indeed they do, dear Mrs. North," she replied indulgently; "but that is merely a subterfuge; one always suspects the worst when there is no name. It pays to have the best."

This latter undeniable dictum was found to be entirely applicable to every detail of the forthcoming festivities, and involved such a multiplicity of expensive items that Grandma Carroll was openly indignant, and her more pliant daughter reduced to a state of bewildered apathy.

"I've been wanting to say to you for a long time, Miss Phipps, that our Lizzie isn't a fashionable girl, and that her father is a poor man and can't afford such doings," Mrs. Carroll protested in no uncertain tones. "Now I can't for the life of me see why we should have an organist from Boston to play the wedding march, when Liddy Green can do it just as well, and her feelings is going to be hurt if she doesn't; and as for a florist from Newton Centre to decorate the church, the young folks in the Sunday-school would be glad to go to the woods after greens, and they'll put 'em up for nothing. It's going to cost enough, the land knows, but there's no use of piling up unnecessary expenses."

Miss Tripp smiled winningly upon the exasperated old lady. "Nothing is too good for dear Elizabeth now," she murmured, "and you know, dear Mrs. Carroll, that a number of Boston people will be here—Mrs. Van Duser, we hope, and—others."

Grandma Carroll fixed piercing eyes upon the indefatigable Evelyn. "Of course you mean well," she said crisply; "but if I was you I'd take a rest; I'm afraid you're getting all tuckered out doing so much. And considering that you ain't any relation I guess I'd let Lizzie's own folks 'tend to the wedding from now on."

There was no mistaking the meaning of this plain speech. For an instant Evelyn Tripp's faded cheeks glowed with mortified colour; then she recovered herself with a shrug of her elegant shoulders. Who, after all, was Mrs. Carroll to interfere in this unwarranted manner?

"It is so sweet of you to think of poor little me, dear Mrs. Carroll," she said caressingly. "And indeed I am worn almost to a fringe; but I am promising myself a good, long rest after everything is over. Nothing would induce me to leave dear Elizabeth now. She couldn't possibly get along without me." She dropped a forgiving kiss on top of Grandma Carroll's cap and flitted away before that justly indignant lady could reply.

Miss Tripp was right. It would have been impossible for the unsophisticated Norths to have completed the arrangements for the entirely "correct" wedding which Miss Tripp had planned and was carrying through in the face of unnumbered obstacles. As to the motives which upheld her in her altruistic efforts in behalf of Elizabeth North Miss Tripp was not entirely clear. It is not always desirable, if possible, to classify and label one's actual motives, and Miss Tripp, for one, rarely attempted the task. A vague emptiness of purpose, a vast weariness of the unending routine of her own somewhat disappointing career, a real, if superficial kindness of heart, and back of all an entirely unacknowledged ambition to attain to that sacred inner circle of Boston society wherein revolved the august Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser, with other lesser luminaries, about the acknowledged "hub" of the universe; toward which Miss Tripp had hitherto gravitated like a humble asteroid, small, unnoticed, yet aspiring. One of the irreproachable invitations had been duly sent to Mrs. Van Duser; but as yet there had been no visible token that it had been received.

"Won't you ask Mr. Brewster if he will not add a personal invitation?" entreated Miss Tripp of the bride-elect, who had appeared alarmingly indifferent when the importance of this hoped-for guest was duly set forth in her hearing. "You don't seem to realise what it would mean to you both to have Mrs. Van Duser present. Let me persuade him to write—or perhaps better to call; one cannot be too attentive to a person in her position."

But Sam Brewster had merely laughed and pulled the little curl behind his sweetheart's ear when she spoke of Mrs. Van Duser. "Really, I don't care whether the old lady comes or not," he said, without meaning any disrespect. "She's a stiff, uncomfortable sort of person; you wouldn't like her, Betty. I went there to dinner once, and, my word, it was enough for me!"

"But," persisted Elizabeth, mindful of Miss Tripp's solemn exhortations, "if she's a relation of yours, oughtn't you to——"

"She was mother's second cousin, I believe; not much of a relation to me, you see. And seriously, little girl, we can't travel in her class at all; and we don't want to, even if we could."

"But why?" demanded Elizabeth, slightly piqued by his tone; "don't you think I am good enough?"

"You're a hundred times too good, in my opinion!" And the young engineer kissed the pouting lips with an earnestness which admitted of no teasing doubts. "It's only that Mrs. Van D. is rich and proud and—er—queer, and that she won't take any notice of us. I'm glad you sent her an invitation, though; that was a civil acknowledgment of a slight obligation on my side. I hope she won't send us a present, and—I don't believe she will."

The two were examining the bewildering array of glittering objects which had been arriving steadily for a week past, by mail and express; in cases left by Boston firms, and in dainty boxes tied with white ribbons from near-by friends and neighbours. The nebulous reports of Elizabeth's wedding outfit, circulated from mouth to mouth and expanding in rainbow tints as they travelled, were reflected in the shining cut glass and silver which was spread out before the wondering eyes of the young couple.

When Aunt Miranda Carroll heard that Elizabeth's trousseau included a dozen of everything (all hand-embroidered), a lace wedding-dress that cost over a hundred dollars and a pale blue velvet dinner gown lined with taffeta, she instantly abandoned the idea she had in mind of four dozen fine cotton sheets, six dozen pillow-slips and fifty good, substantial huck towels in favour of a cut-glass punch-bowl of gigantic proportions. "It would be just the thing for parties in Boston," her daughter Marian thought.

And Uncle Caleb North, at the urgent advice of his wife (who had heard in the meantime from Aunt Miranda), exchanged his cheque for a hundred dollars for a chest of silver knives with mother-of-pearl handles. They looked so much richer than the cheque, which would have to be concealed in an inconspicuous envelope. Following the shining example of Aunt Miranda and Uncle Caleb, other relatives of lesser substance contributed cut-glass bowls and dishes of every conceivable design and for every known contingency; silver forks and spoons of singular shapes and sizes, suggesting elaborate course luncheons and fashionable dinners. While of lace-trimmed and embroidered centre-pieces and doylies there was a plenitude which would have set forth a modest linen draper. Fragile vases, hand-painted fans, perfume bottles, silver trifles of unimagined uses, sofa pillows and gilt clocks crowded the tables and overflowed onto the floor and mantelpiece.

Elizabeth surveyed the collection with sparkling eyes. "Aren't they lovely?" she demanded, slipping her hand within her lover's arm; "and aren't you surprised, Sam, to see how many friends we have?"

"Yes, I am—awfully surprised," acknowledged the young man. His brows were drawn over meditative eyes as he examined a shining carving-set with impossible ivory handles. "What are we going to do with them all?" he propounded at length.

"Do with them? Why use them, I suppose," responded Elizabeth vaguely. "Do see these darling little cups, all gold and roses, and these coffee-spoons with enamelled handles—these make eight dozen coffee-spoons, Sam!"

"Hum!" mused the unappreciative engineer. "We might set up a restaurant, as far as coffee-spoons go."

Elizabeth was bending rapturously over a lace fan, sewn thick with spangles. "I feel so rich with all these lovely things," she murmured. "I never dreamed of having so many."

She made such an exquisite picture in her glowing youth amid the sparkle and glitter of the dainty trifles that it is little wonder that Samuel Brewster lost his usually level head for the moment. "You ought always to have all the pretty things you want, darling," he whispered; "for you are the prettiest and sweetest girl alive."

Later in the day the ubiquitous Miss Tripp was discovered in the act of artfully concealing Mrs. Carroll's gift, made by her own faithful hands, under a profusion of lace-edged doylies lately arrived from a distant cousin. "There!" she exclaimed, with an air of relief, "those big gingham aprons and the dish-towels and dusters did look so absurd with all the other lovely things; they won't show now." And she planted a silver fern-dish in the midst and surveyed the effect with her head tilted thoughtfully. "Wasn't it quaint of Mrs. Carroll to make all those useful things? You can give them to your maid afterward; they always expect to be found in aprons nowadays—if not frocks. Really, I draw the line at frocks, with the wages one is obliged to pay; and I should advise you to."

"I'm not going to have a maid," said Elizabeth. "I can cook, and I like to."

Miss Tripp whirled about and caught the girl in her arms with an amused laugh. "You dear, romantic child!" she cried. "Did it have the prettiest dreams about love in a cottage, and the young wife with her sleeves rolled up cooking delicious impossibilities for a doting husband? That's all very well, my dear; but, seriously, it won't do in a Boston apartment-house. You won't have a minute to yourself after the season once begins, and of course after a while you'll be expected to entertain—quite simply, you know, a luncheon or two, with cards; possibly a dinner; you can do it beautifully with all these lovely things for your table. I'll help you; so don't get frightened at the idea. But fancy your doing all that without a maid! You mustn't think of it! And I am sure dear Mrs. Van Duser will give you the same advice."

The soft pink in Elizabeth's cheeks deepened to rose. "Mrs. Van Duser isn't coming to the wedding," she said, in a faintly defiant tone.

"Oh! Did she send you——"

"She sent regrets," said Elizabeth coldly.

Miss Tripp's eyebrows expressed the profoundest disappointment. "I am so sorry," she murmured, suddenly aware that she was exceedingly weary of the North wedding. "It will spoil everything."

"I can't see why," returned Elizabeth with spirit, not realising that Miss Tripp's comment applied solely to her own feelings. "It won't prevent my being married to Sam; and Sam says he is glad she is not coming. She must be a stiff, pokey sort of a person, and I am sure it will be pleasanter without her. She isn't hardly any relation to Sam, anyway, and I don't think I care to know her."

"My dear!" expostulated Miss Tripp, "you'll see things very differently some day, I hope. And I am glad to say that these relationships do count in Boston, if not in other parts of the world, and you cannot prevent people from knowing that they exist."

Like a skilful general Miss Tripp was sweeping her field clear of her disappointment, preparatory to marshalling her forces for a new campaign. "Did Mrs. Van Duser send cards, or did she——"

"She wrote a note—a stiff, disagreeable note."

"Would you mind showing it to me, dear?"

Elizabeth produced a thick white envelope from the little embroidered pocket at her belt. "You may read it," she said; "then I mean to tear it up."

Miss Tripp bent almost worshipful eyes upon the large, square sheet. "Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser" (she read) "begs to convey her acknowledgments to Dr. and Mrs. North for their invitation to the marriage of their daughter, and regrets that she cannot be present. Mrs. Van Duser begs to add that she will communicate further with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Brewster upon their arrival in Boston upon a matter of moment to them both."

"Isn't that a disagreeable-sounding note?" demanded Elizabeth, her pretty chin tilted at an aggressive angle. "I just know I shouldn't like her from that letter. But I'm sure I can't think what she wants to say to us 'upon our arrival in Boston.'"

"My dear!" exclaimed Miss Tripp, with a horrified stare, "what can you be thinking of? That note is in the most perfect form. I am so glad you showed it to me! 'Something of moment to you both,' what can it mean but a gift—perhaps a generous cheque, and undoubtedly a reception to introduce you. My dear! Mrs. Van Duser is said to be worth millions, and what is more, and far, far better, she moves in the most exclusive society. You dear, lucky girl, I congratulate you upon the recognition you have received. Tear it up—indeed, you will do nothing of the sort! I'll put it here right by this cut-glass vase, where every one will see it."

Elizabeth pouted. "Mother didn't like it," she said, "and grandma laughed over it, and Sam told me to forget it; I don't see why you——"

"Because I know," intoned Miss Tripp solemnly. "I only hope you won't forget poor little me when you're fairly launched in Mrs. Van Duser's set."

Elizabeth gazed reflectively at her friend. "Oh, I couldn't forget you," she said; "you've been so good to me. But," she added, with what Miss Tripp mentally termed delicious naïveté, "I don't suppose we shall give many large parties, just at first."

CHAPTER VI

"I am of the opinion," wrote the sapient Dr. Johnson, "that marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the circumstances and characters, without the parties thereto having any choice in the matter."

That this radical matrimonial reform did not find favour in the eyes of his own or any succeeding generation brands it as visionary, impracticable, not to be seriously entertained, in short, by any one not a philosopher and not himself in love. But could the benevolent shade of Dr. Johnson be let into the details of a fashionable modern wedding, it is safe to predict that he might recommend a new civic function to be administered either by the Lord Chancellor, or by some equally responsible person for the purpose of regulating by sumptuary law the bridal trousseau and the wedding presents. The renowned Georgian sage could not fail to recognise the relation which these too often unconsidered items bear to the welfare of the private citizen in particular and to the weal of mankind in general. And who can deny that all legislation is, or should be, centred chiefly on these very ends.

"Never had there been such a wedding in Innisfield"

Such sober reflections as the above, though perhaps forming an unavoidable background in the minds of several of the older persons present, did not cloud the rapturous happiness of Elizabeth Carroll North, as she paced slowly up the aisle of the Innisfield Presbyterian church on the arm of her father, the folds of her "Pryse gown," as Miss Tripp was careful to designate it, sweeping gracefully behind her. The bridesmaids in pale rose-colour and the maid of honour in white; the tiny flower-girls bearing baskets of roses; the ushers with their boutonnières of orange buds; the waving palms and the sounding music each represented a separate Waterloo, fought and won by the Napoleonic Miss Tripp, who looked on, wan but self-satisfied, from a modest position in the audience. Never had there been such a wedding in Innisfield. Everybody said so in loud, buzzing whispers. Sadie Buckthorn, who was engaged to Milton Scrymger, informed her mamma that she should be married in church in October, and that her bridesmaids should wear yellow. And Bob Garrett, a clerk in a Boston department store, told his sweetheart that he guessed the wedding was about their speed, and added that he knew a swell floor-walker who would look simply great as best man.

As for the young couple chiefly concerned they might have walked on air instead of on the roses strewed in their path by the little flower-girls; and the hundreds of curious eyes fastened upon them were as dim, painted eyes upon a tapestried wall. They only saw each other and the gate of that ancient Eden of the race opening before them.

That same evening, after all was over, and when, as the village reporter phrased it with happy originality, "the young couple had departed upon their wedding journey amid showers of rice and roses," Dr. North sought his tired wife, busy clearing away the tokens of the late festivities.

"Come, Lizzie," he said kindly, "we may as well get what rest we can; to-morrow'll be another day, and we've got to go jogging on about our middle-aged business as usual."

Mrs. North looked up at him with tearful eyes. "I can't seem to realise that Bessie's gone to stay," she said tremulously. "I just caught myself thinking what I'd say to her when she came home, and what we'd——"

Richard North passed his arm about the wife of his youth. "I—hope he'll be good to her," he said, his voice shaken with feeling. "I—I believe he's all right. If he isn't I'll—" He shrugged his broad shoulders impatiently.

"Oh, I'm not a bit worried about Sam," said Mrs. North; "I know enough about men. But, O Dick, I'm going to miss my—baby!"

He held her close for a minute while she sobbed on his shoulder; then the two went slowly up the stairs together, leaving the disordered rooms and the fading roses in the luminous dark of the June night.

The Boston apartment to which young Samuel Brewster brought his bride in the early part of September was of Miss Evelyn Tripp's choosing. The engineer had demurred at its distance from his work, but Elizabeth had said she preferred to be near Evelyn; and Evelyn said that the location, if not strictly fashionable, was at least near the people they ought to know.

The rent was thirty-eight dollars a month. And the rooms were small, inconvenient and old-fashioned. "But," as Miss Tripp kindly pointed out, "if one is obliged to choose between a small, old-fashioned suite in a really good locality and a light airy one in the unfashionable suburbs of South Boston one ought not to hesitate."

Mrs. North and Grandma Carroll had seen to putting the furnishings in place; and when the two arrived at the close of a hot afternoon they found everything in the exquisite order with which Elizabeth had been happily familiar all her life.

She ran from room to room laughing and crying in the same breath. "Oh, Sam, dear, do see, there is ice in the refrigerator and a cunning little jar of cream and a print of butter; and here is a roast chicken and some of grandma's rolls and one of mother's delicious lemon pies! How hard they must have worked. I'll put on one of these big aprons, and we'll have supper in no time!"

And Sam Brewster, as he watched his wife's pretty little figure moving lightly about her new kitchen, heaved a mighty sigh of content. "It seems almost too good to be true!" he murmured. "And to think it is for always!"

It was not until they had eaten their first blissful meal together, and had washed the dishes, also together, in the dark little kitchen—an operation in which the young engineer covered himself with glory in his masterly handling of the dish-towel—that Elizabeth discovered a large square envelope, bearing the Van Duser crest, and addressed to herself.

She opened it in the circle of Sam's arms, as the two reposed on their one small sofa in the room bearing the dignified title of reception hall.

"Why—what in the name of common sense is she giving us?" was Sam Brewster's startled exclamation as his quick eye took in the contents of the sheet.

"I—I don't understand," gasped Elizabeth, growing hot and cold and faint, "I can't think—how it could have happened."

Yet Mrs. Van Duser's words, though few, were sufficiently succinct. They were inspired, as she afterward confided to her rector, Dr. Gallatin, by the most altruistic sentiments of which the human heart is capable. "Truth," Mrs. Van Duser had enunciated majestically, "never finds itself at a loss. And in administering so just a rebuke to a young person manifestly appointed to fill a humble station in life I feel that I am in a measure assuming the prerogatives of Providence."

In this exalted rôle Mrs. Van Duser had written to Elizabeth North, whose miserable, shamed eyes avoided those of her husband after she had realised its contents. The letter enclosed a bill for one hundred and twenty-five dollars from Madame Léonie Pryse, for the material, making and findings for one blue velvet reception gown. There was a pencilled note attached, to the effect that as Madame Pryse had been referred to Mrs. Van Duser, she begged to present the bill, with the hope that it would be settled at an early date. Mrs. Van Duser's own majestic hand had added a brief communication, over which the young engineer scowled fiercely. He read:

"As Mrs. Brewster's personal expenses, either before or after her marriage, can have no possible interest for Mrs. Van Duser, Mrs. Van Duser begs to bring to Mrs. Brewster's attention the enclosed statement. Mrs. Van Duser wishes to inform Mrs. Brewster that she has taken the pains to send for the tradeswoman in question, and that she has elicited from her facts which seem to show an entire misapprehension of the commoner ethical requirements on the part of the person addressed.