Together | Page 6

greeting the couple gain the
refreshment tent through the library windows. The Colonel had worked
it all out with that wonderful attention to detail that had built up his
great hardware business. Upstairs in the front bedrooms the wedding
presents had been arranged, and nicely ticketed with cards for the
amusement of aged relatives,--a wonderful assortment of silver and
gold and glass,--an exhibition of the wide relationships of the
contracting pair, at least of the wife. And through these rooms
soft-footed detectives patrolled, examining the guests....
Isabelle Price had not wished her wedding to be of this kind, ordered so
to speak like the refreshments from Sherry and the presents from
Tiffany, with a special train on the siding. When she and John had
decided to be married at the old farm, she had thought of a country
feast,--her St. Mary's girls of course and one or two more, but quite to
themselves! They were to walk with these few friends to the little
chapel, where the dull old village parson would say the necessary
words. The marriage over, and a simple breakfast in the old house,--the
scene of their love,--they were to ride off among the hills to her camp
on Dog Mountain, alone. And thus quietly, without flourish, they

would enter the new life. But as happens to all such pretty idylls, reality
had forced her hand. Colonel Price's daughter could not marry like an
eloping schoolgirl, so her mother had declared. Even John had taken it
as a matter of course, all this elaborate celebration, the guests, the
special train, the overflowing house. And she had yielded her ideal of
having something special in her wedding, acquiescing in the "usual
thing."
But now that the first guests began to top the hill and enter the hall with
warm, laughing greetings, all as gay as the June sunlight, the women in
their fresh summer gowns, she felt the joy of the moment. "Isn't it jolly,
so many of 'em!" she exclaimed to her husband, squeezing his arm
gayly. He took it, like most things, as a matter of course. The hall soon
filled with high tones and noisy laughter, as the guests crowded in from
the lawn about the couple, to offer their congratulations, to make their
little jokes, and premeditated speeches. Standing at the foot of the
broad stairs, her veil thrown back, her fair face flushed with color and
her lips parted in a smile, one arm about a thick bunch of roses, the
bride made a bright spot of light in the dark hall. All those whirling
thoughts, the depths to which her spirit had descended during the
service, had fled; she was excited by this throng of smiling, joking
people, by the sense of her role. She had the feeling of its being her day,
and she was eager to drink every drop in the sparkling cup. A great
kindness for everybody, a sort of beaming sympathy for the world,
bubbled up in her heart, making the repeated hand squeeze which she
gave--sometimes a double pressure--a personal expression of her
emotion. Her flashing hazel eyes, darting into each face in turn as it
came before her, seemed to say: 'Of course, I am the happiest woman in
the world, and you must be happy, too. It is such a good world!' While
her voice was repeating again and again, with the same tremulous
intensity, "Thank you--it is awfully nice of you--I am so glad you are
here!"
To the amiable Senator's much worn compliment,--"It's the prettiest
wedding I have seen since your mother's, and the prettiest bride,
too,"--she blushed a pleased reply, though she had confessed to John
only the night before that the sprightly Senator was "horrid,--he has

such a way of squeezing your hand, as if he would like to do more,"--to
which the young man had replied in his perplexity, due to the Senator's
exalted position in the A. and P. Board, "I suppose it's only the old
boy's way of being cordial."
Even when Nannie Lawton came loudly with Hollenby--she had
captured him from her cousin--and threw her arms about the bride,
Isabelle did not draw back. She forgot that she disliked the gay little
woman, with her muddy eyes, whose "affairs"--one after the
other--were condoned "for her husband's sake." Perhaps Nannie felt
what it might be to be as happy and proud as she was,--she was large,
generous, comprehending at this moment. And she passed the
explosive little woman over to her husband, who received her with the
calm courtesy that never made an enemy.
But when "her girls" came up the line, she felt happiest. Cornelia was
first, large, handsome, stately, her broad black hat nodding above the
feminine stream, her dark eyes observing all, while she slowly smiled
to