The Vehement Flame | Page 9

veil? I don't see why father minds."
Mrs. Houghton, standing in front of her mirror, said, dryly: "There are
things more important than veils, when it comes to getting married. In
the first place, they eloped--"
"Oh, how lovely! I am going to elope when I get married!"
"I hope you won't have such bad taste. Of course they ought not to have
got married that way. But the thing that bothers your father, is that the
lady Maurice has married is--is older than he."
"How much older?" Edith demanded; "a year?"
"I don't just know. Probably twenty years older."
Edith was silent, rapidly adding up nineteen and twenty; then she
gasped, "_Thirty-nine_!"
"Well, about that; and father is sorry, because Maurice can't go back to
college. He will have to go into business."
Edith saw no cause for regret in this. "Guess he's glad not to have to
learn things! But why weren't we invited to the wedding? I always
meant to be Maurice's bridesmaid."
Mrs. Houghton said she didn't know. Edith was silent, for a whole
minute. Then she said, soberly:

"I suppose father's sorry 'cause she'll die so soon, she's so old? And
then Maurice will feel awfully. Poor Maurice! Well, I'll live with him,
and comfort him."
"My dear, I'm fifty!" Mrs. Houghton said, much amused.
"Oh, well, _you_--" Edith demurred; "that's different. You're my
mother, and you--" She paused; "I never thought of you being old, or
dying, ever. And yet I suppose you are rather old?" She pondered. "I
suppose some day you'll die? Mother!--promise me you won't!" she
said, quaveringly.
"Edith, don't be a goose!" Mrs. Houghton said, laughing--but she turned
and kissed the rosy, anxious face, "Maurice's wife isn't old at all. She's
quite young. It's only that he is so much younger."
Edith lapsed into silence. She was very quiet for the rest of that summer
morning. Just before dinner she went across the west pasture to Doctor
Bennett's house, and, hailing Johnny, told him the news. His
indifference--for he only looked at her, with his mild, nearsighted
brown eyes, and said, "Huh?"--irritated her so that she would not
confide her dismay at Maurice's approaching widowerhood, but ran
home to a sympathetic kitchen: "Katy! Maurice got eloped!"
Katy was much more satisfactory than Johnny; she said, "God save us!
Mr. Maurice eloped? Who with, then? Well, well!" But Edith was still
abstracted. Time, as related to life, had acquired significance. At dinner
she regarded her father with troubled eyes. He, too, was old, like
Maurice's wife. He, too, as well as the bride, and her mother, would die,
sometime. And she and Maurice would have such awful grief!...
Something tightened in her throat; "Please 'scuse me," she said, in a
muffled voice; and, slipping out of her chair, made a dash for the back
door, and ran as hard as she could to her chicken house. The little place
was hot, and smelled of feathers; through the windows, cobwebbed and
dusty, the sunshine fell dimly on the hard earth floor, and on an empty
plate or two and a rusty, overturned tin pan. Here, sitting on a
convenient box, she could think things out undisturbed: Maurice, and
his lovely, dying Bride; herself, orphaned and alone; Johnny Bennett,

indifferent to all this oncoming grief! Probably Maurice was worrying
about it all the time! How long would the Bride live? Suddenly she
remembered her mother's age, and had a revulsion of hope for Maurice.
Perhaps his wife would live to be as old as mother? "Why, I hadn't
thought of that! Well, then, she will live--let's see: thirty-nine from fifty
leaves eleven--yes; the Bride will live eleven years!" Why, that wasn't
so terrible, after all. "That's as long as I have been alive!" Obviously it
would not be necessary to take care of Maurice for quite a good while.
"I guess," she reflected, "I'll have some children by that time. And
maybe I'll be married, too, for Maurice won't need me for eleven years.
But I don't know what I'd do with my husband then?" She frowned; a
husband would be bothering, if she had to go and live with Maurice.
"Oh, well, probably my husband will be so old, he'll die about the time
Maurice's wife does." She had meant to marry Johnny. "But I won't.
He's too young. He's only three years older 'an me. He might live too
long. I must get an old husband. I'll tell Johnny about it to-morrow. I'll
wear mourning," she thought; "a long veil! It's so interesting. But not
over my face--you can't see through it, and it isn't sense not to be able
to see." (The test Edith applied to conduct was always, "Is it sense?")
"Of course I shall feel badly about my husband; but