opened a field to her that everybody was more than thankful to have
her occupy.
Lovers, we all know, are, _ex-officio_, ranked among the incapables;
and if, while they were mooning round in the fairy-land of sentiment,
some good, strong, active, practical head were not at work upon the
details of real life, nothing would be on time at the wedding. Now,
if this be true of one wedding, how much more of two! So Aunt Maria
stepped at once into command by acclamation and addressed herself to
her work as a strong man to run a race; and while Angie and St. John
spent blissful hours in the back parlor, and Jim and Alice monopolized
the library, Aunt Maria flew all over New York, and arranged about
all the towels and table-cloths and napkins and doilies, down to the
very dish-cloths. She overlooked armies of sewing women, milliners and
mantua-makers--the most slippery of all mortal creatures--and drove
them all up to have each her quota in time. She, with Mrs. Van Arsdel,
made lists of people to be invited, and busied herself with getting
samples and terms from fancy stationers for the wedding cards. She
planned in advance all the details of the wedding feast, and engaged
the cake and fruit and ice-cream.
Nor did she forget the social and society exigencies of the crisis.
She found time, dressed in her best, to take Mrs. Van Arsdel in full
panoply to return the call of Mrs. Dr. Gracey, who had come, promptly
and properly, with the doctor, to recognize Miss Angelique and
felicitate about the engagement of their nephew.
She arranged for a dinner-party to be given by Mrs. Van Arsdel, where
the doctor and his lady were to be received into family alliance, and
testimonies of high consideration accorded to them. Aunt Maria took
occasion, in private converse with Mrs. Dr. Gracey, to assure her of
her very great esteem and respect for Mr. St. John, and her perfect
conviction that he was on the right road now, and that, though he
might possibly burn a few more candles in his chapel, yet, when he
came fully under family influences, they would gradually be snuffed
out,--intimating that she intended to be aunt, not only to Arthur, but
to his chapel and his mission-work.
The extraordinary and serene meekness with which that young divine
left every question of form and etiquette to her management, and the
sort of dazed humility with which he listened to all her rulings about
the arrangements of the wedding-day, had inspired in Aunt Maria's mind
such hopes of his docility as led to these very sanguine anticipations.
It is true that, when it came to the question of renting a house, she
found him quietly but unalterably set on a small and modest little
mansion in the unfashionable neighborhood where his work lay.
"Arthur is going on with his mission," said Angelique, "and I'm going
to help him, and we must live where we can do most good"--a reason to
which Aunt Maria was just now too busy to reply, but she satisfied
herself by discussing at length the wedding affairs with Mrs. Dr.
Gracey.
"Of course, Mrs. Gracey," she said, "we all feel that if dear Dr.
Gracey is to conduct the wedding services, everything will be in the
good old way; there'll be nothing objectionable or unusual."
"Oh, you may rely on that, Mrs. Wouvermans," replied the lady.
"The doctor is not the man to run after novelties; he's a good
old-fashioned Episcopalian. Though he always has been very indulgent
to Arthur, he thinks, as our dear bishop does, that if young men are
left to themselves, and not fretted by opposition, they will gradually
outgrow these things."
"Precisely so," said Aunt Maria; "just what I have always thought. For
my part I always said that it was safe to trust the bishop."
Did Aunt Maria believe this? She certainly appeared to. She sincerely
supposed that this was what she always had thought and said, and quite
forgot the times when she used to wonder "what our bishop could be
thinking of, to let things go so."
It was one blessed facility of this remarkable woman that she
generally came to the full conviction of the axiom that "whatever is,
is right," and took up and patronized anything that would succeed in
spite of her best efforts to prevent it.
So, in announcing the double wedding to her fashionable acquaintance,
she placed everything, as the popular saying is, best foot foremost.
Mr. Fellows was a young man of fine talents, great industry and
elegant manners, a great favorite in society, and likely to take the
highest rank in his profession. Alice had refused richer offers--she
might perhaps have done better in a worldly point of view, but it was
purely a love match, &c., &c. And Mr. St. John, a young man of fine
family and independent fortune, who might command all the elegancies
of life, was going to live in a distant and obscure quarter, to labor
in his work. These facts brought forth, of course, bursts of sympathy
and congratulation, and Aunt Maria went off on the top of the wave.
Eva had but done her aunt justice when she told her mother that Aunt
Maria would be all the more amiable for the firm stand which the young
wife had taken against any interference with her family matters. It
was so. Aunt Maria was as balmy to Eva as if that discussion had never
taken place, though it must be admitted that Eva was a very difficult
person to keep up a long quarrel with.
But just at this hour, when the whole family were at her feet, when
it was her voice that decided every question, when she knew where
everything was and was to be, and when everything was to be done, she
was too well pleased to be unamiable. She was the spirit of the whole
affair, and she plumed herself joyously when all the callers at the
house said to Mrs. Van Arsdel, "Dear me! what would you do, if it were
not for your sister?"
Verily she had her reward.
_CHAPTER LII._
EVA'S CONSULTATIONS.
"Now see here," said Jim, coming in upon Eva as she sat alone in her
parlor, "I've got something on my mind I want to talk with you about.
You see, Alice and I are to be married at the same time with Angie and
St. John."
"Yes, I see it."
"Well, now, what I want to say is, that I really hope there won't be
anything longer and harder and more circumlocutory to be got through
with on the occasion than just what's in the prayer-book, for that's
all I can stand. I can't stand prayer-book with the variations, now I
really can't."
"Well, Jim, what makes you think there will be prayer-book with the
variations?"
"Oh, well, I attended a ritualistic wedding once, and there was
such an amount of processing and chanting, and ancient and modern
improvements, that it was just like a show. There were the press
reporters elbowing and pushing to get the best places to write it
up for the papers, and, for my part, I think it's in confounded bad
taste, and I couldn't stand it; you know, now, I'm a nervous fellow,
and if _I've_ got to take part in the exercises, they'll have to 'draw
it mild,' or Allie and I will have to secede and take it by ourselves.
I _couldn't_ go such a thing as that wedding; I never should come out
alive."
"Well, Jim, I don't believe there's any reason for apprehension. In
the first place, the ceremony, as to its mode and form, always is
supposed to be conducted according to the preferences of the bride's
family, and we all of us should be opposed to anything which would
draw remark and comment, as being singular and unusual on such an
occasion."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Jim.
"And then, Jim, Mr. St. John's uncle, Dr. Gracey, is to perform the
ceremony, and he is one of the most respected of the conservative
Episcopal clergymen in New York; and it is entirely out of the
question to suppose that he would take part in anything of the sort
you fear, or which would excite comment as an innovation. Then, again,
I think Mr. St. John himself has so much natural refinement and just
taste that he would not wish his own wedding to become a theme for
gossip and a gazing stock for the curious."
"Well, I didn't know about St. John; I was a little afraid we should
be obliged to do something or other, because they did it in the
catacombs, or the Middle Ages, or in Edward the Sixth's time, or some
such dodge. I thought I'd just make sure."
"Well, I think Mr. St. John has gone as far in those directions as
he ever will go. He has been living alone up to this winter. He has
formed his ideas by himself in solitude. Now he will have another half
to himself; he will see in part through the eyes, and feel through
the heart, of a sensible and discreet woman--for Angie is that. The
society he has met at our house in such men as Dr. Campbell and
others, has enlarged his horizon,--given him new points of vision,--so
that I think the too great tendencies he may have had in certain
directions have been insensibly checked."
"I wish they may," said Jim, "for he is a good fellow, and so much
like one of the primitive Christians that I really want him to get all
the credit that belongs to him."
"Oh, well, you'll see, Jim. When a man is so sincere and good, and
labors with a good wife to help him, you'll see the difference. But
here comes little Mrs. Betsey, Jim. I promised to get her up a cap for
the occasion."
"Well, I'm off; only be sure you make matters secure about the
ceremony," and off went Jim, and in came little Mrs. Betsey.
"It's so good of you, dear Mrs. Henderson, to undertake to make me
presentable. You know Dorcas hasn't the least interest in these
things. Dorcas is _so_ independent, she never cares what the fashion
is. Now, _she_ isn't doing a thing to get ready. She's just going in
that satin gown that she had made twenty years ago, with a great lace
collar as big as a platter; and she sits there just as easy, reading
'Pope's Essay on Man,' and here I'm all in a worry; but I can't help
it. I like to look a little like other folks, you know. I don't want
people to think I'm a queer old woman."
"Certainly, it's the most natural thing in the world," said Eva, as
she stepped into the little adjoining workroom, and brought out a
filmy cap, trimmed with the most delicate shade of rosy lilac ribbons.
"There!" she said, settling it on Mrs. Betsey's head, and tying a bow
under her chin, "if anybody says you're not a beauty in this, I'd like
to ask them why?"
"I know it's silly at my age, but I do like pretty things," said Mrs.
Betsey, looking at herself with approbation in the glass, "and all the
more that it's so very kind of you, dear Mrs. Henderson."
"Me? Oh, I like to do it. I'm a born milliner," said Eva.
"And now I want to ask a favor. Do you think it would _do_ for us to
take our Dinah to church to see the ceremony. I don't know anybody
that could enjoy it more, and Dinah has so few pleasures."
"Why, certainly. Dinah! my faithful adviser and help in time of need?
Why, _of course_, give my compliments to her, and tell her I shall
depend on seeing her there."
"Dinah is so delighted at the thought that your sister and Mr. Fellows
are coming to live with us, she is busy cleaning their rooms, and does
it with a will. You know Mr. Fellows has just that gay, pleasant sort
of way that delights all the servants, and she says your sister is
such a beauty!"
"Well, be sure and tell Dinah to come to the wedding, and she shall
have a slice of the cake to dream on."
"I think I shall feel _so_ much safer when we have a _man_ in the
house," continued Mrs. Betsey. "You see we have so much silver, and so
many things of that kind, and Dorcas frightens me to death, because
she will have the basket lugged up into our room at night. I tell her
if she'd _only_ set it outside in the entry, then if the burglars came
they could just go off with it, without stopping to murder us; but if
it was in our room, why, of course, they would. The fact is, I have
got so nervous about burglars that I am up and down two or three times
a night."
"But you have Jack to take care of you."
"Jack is a good watch dog--he's very alert; but the trouble is, he
barks just as loud when there isn't anything going on as when there
is. Night after night, that dog has started us both up with such
a report, and I'd go all over the house and find nothing there.
Sometimes I think he hears people trying the doors or windows.
Altogether, I think Jack frightens me more than he helps, though I
know he does it all for the best, and I tell Dorcas so when he wakes
her up. You know experienced people always do say that a small dog
is the very safest thing you can have; but when Mr. Fellows comes I
shall really sleep peaceably. And now, Mrs. Henderson, you don't think
that light mauve silk of mine will be too young-looking for me?"
"No, indeed," said Eva. "Why shouldn't we all look as young as we can?"
"I haven't worn it for more than thirty years; but the silk is good as
ever, and your little dress-maker has made it over with an over-skirt,
and Dinah is delighted with it, and says it makes me look ten years
younger!"
"Oh! well I must come over and see it on you."
"Would you care?" said Mrs. Betsey, delighted. "How good you are; and
then I'll show you the toilette cushions I've been making for the
dear young ladies; and Dorcas is going to give each of them a pair of
real old India vases that have been in the family ever since we can
remember."
"Why, you'll be robbing yourselves."
"No, indeed; it would be robbing ourselves not to give something,
after all the kindness you've shown us."
And Eva went over to the neighboring house with Mrs. Betsey; and
entered into all the nice little toilette details with her; and
delighted Dinah with an invitation in person; and took a sympathizing
view of Dinah's new bonnet and shawl, which she pronounced entirely
adequate to the occasion; and thus went along, sewing little seeds of
pleasure to make her neighbors happier--seeds which were to come up in
kind thoughts and actions on their part by and by.
_CHAPTER LIII._
WEDDING PRESENTS.
St. John and Angie were together, one evening, in the room that had
been devoted to the reception of the wedding presents. This room had
been Aunt Maria's pride and joy, and already it had assumed quite the
appearance of a bazar, for the family connections of the Van Arsdels
was large, and numbered many among the richer classes. Arthur's uncle,
Dr. Gracey, and the family connections through him were also people in
prosperous worldly circumstances, and remarkably well pleased with the
marriage; and so there had been a great abundance of valuable gifts.
The door-bell for the last week or two had been ringing incessantly,
and Aunt Maria had eagerly seized the parcels from the servant and
borne them to the depository, and fixed their stations with the cards
of the givers conspicuously displayed.
Of course the reader knows that there were the usual amount of
berry-spoons, and pie-knives, and crumb-scrapers; of tea-spoons and
coffee-spoons; of silver tea-services; of bracelets and chains and
studs and brooches and shawl-pins and cashmere shawls and laces.
Nobody could deny that everything was arranged so as to make the very
most of it.
Angie was showing the things to St. John, in one of those interminable
interviews in which engaged people find so much to tell each other.
"Really, Arthur," she said, "it is almost too much. Everybody is
giving to me, just at a time when I am so happy that I need it less
than ever I did in my life. I can't help feeling as if it was more
than my share."
Of course Arthur didn't think so; he was in that mood that he couldn't
think anything on land or sea was too much to be given to Angie.
"And look here," she said, pointing him to a stand which displayed a
show of needle-books and pincushions, and small matters of that kind,
"just look here--even the little girls of my sewing-class must give me
something. That needle-book, little Lottie Price made. Where she got
the silk I don't know, but it's quite touching. See how nicely she's
done it! It makes me almost cry to have poor people want to make me
presents."
"Why should we deny _them_ that pleasure--the greatest and purest
in the world?" said St. John. "It is more blessed to give than to
receive."
"Well, then, Arthur, I'll tell you what I was thinking of. I wouldn't
dare tell it to anybody else, for they'd think perhaps I was making
believe to be better than I was; but I was thinking it would make my
wedding brighter to give gifts to poor, desolate people who really
need them than to have all this heaped upon me."
Then Arthur told her how, in some distant ages of faith and
simplicity, Christian weddings were always celebrated by gifts to the
poor.
"Now, for example," said Angie, "that poor, little, pale dress-maker
that Aunt Maria found for me,--she has worked day and night over my
things, and I can't help wanting to do something to brighten her up.
She has nothing but hard work and no holidays; no lover to come and
give her pretty things, and take her to Europe; and then she has a
sick mother to take care of--only think. Now, she told me, one day,
she was trying to save enough to get a sewing-machine."
"Very well," said Arthur, "if you want to give her one, we'll go
and look one out to-morrow and send it to her, with a card for the
ceremony, so there will be one glad heart."
"Arthur, you--"
But what Angie said to Arthur, and how she rewarded him, belongs to
the literature of Eden--it cannot be exactly translated.
Then they conferred about different poor families, whose wants and
troubles and sorrows were known to those two, and a wedding gift was
devised to be sent to each of them; and there are people who may
believe that the devising and executing of these last deeds of love
gave Angie and St. John more pleasure than all the silver and jewelry
in the wedding bazar.
"I have reserved a place for our Sunday-school to be present at the
ceremony," said Arthur; "and there is to be a nice little collation
laid for them in my study; and we must go in there a few minutes after
the ceremony, and show ourselves to them, and bid them good-by before
we go to your mother's."
"Arthur, that is exactly what I was thinking of. I believe we think
the same things always. Now, I want to say another thing. You wanted
to know what piece of jewelry you should get for my wedding present."
"Well, darling?"
"Well, I have told Aunt Maria and mamma and all of them that your
wedding gift to me was something I meant to keep to myself; that I
would not have it put on the table, or shown, or talked about. I did
this, in the first place, as a matter of taste. It seems to me that a
marriage gift ought to be something sacred between us two."
"Like the white stone with the new name that no man knoweth save him
that receiveth it," said St. John.
"Yes; just like that. Well, then, Arthur, get me only a plain locket
with your hair in it, and give all the rest of the money to these
uses we talked about, and I will count it my present. It will be a
pledge to me that I shall not be a hindrance to you in your work, but
a help; that you will do more and not less good for having me for your
wife."
What was said in reply to this was again in the super-angelic dialect,
and untranslatable; but these two children of the kingdom understood
it gladly, for they were, in all the higher and nobler impulses, of
one heart and one soul.
"As to the ceremony, Arthur," said Angie, "you know how very loving
and kind your uncle has been to us. He has been like a real father;
and since he is to perform it, I hope there will be nothing introduced
that would be embarrassing to him or make unnecessary talk and
comment. Just the plain, usual service of the Prayer-book will be
enough, will it not?"
"Just as you say, my darling; this, undoubtedly, is your province."
"I think," said Angie, "that there are many things in themselves
beautiful and symbolic, and that might be full of interest to natures
like yours and mine, that had better be left alone if they offend the
prejudices of others, especially of dear and honored friends."
"I don't know but you are right, Angie; at any rate, our wedding, so
far as that is concerned, shall have nothing in it to give offense to
any one."
"Sometimes I think," said Angie, "we please God by giving up, for
love's sake, little things we would like to do in his service, more
than by worship."
"Well, dear, that principle has a long reach. We will talk more about
it by and by; but now, good-night!--or your mother will be scolding
you again for sitting up late. Somehow, the time does slip away so
when we get to talking."
_CHAPTER LIV._
MARRIED AND A'.
Well, the day of days came at last, and a fairer May morning never
brightened the spire of old Trinity or woke the sparrows of the park.
Even the dingy back garden of the Vanderheyden house had bubbled out
in golden crocus and one or two struggling hyacinths, and the old
lilacs by the chamber windows were putting forth their first dusky,
sweet-scented buds. In about half a dozen houses, everybody was up
early, with heads full of wedding dresses, and wedding fusses, and
wedding cake. Aunt Maria, like a sergeant of police, was on hand,
as wide awake and as fully possessed of the case as it was possible
for mortal woman to be. She was everywhere,--seeing to everything,
reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and pushing matters into line
generally.
This was her hour of glory, and she was mistress of the situation.
Mrs. Van Arsdel was sweet and loving, bewildered and tearful;
and wandered hither and thither doing little bits of things and
remorselessly snubbed by her energetic sister, who, after pushing her
out of the way several times, finally issued the order: "Nellie, I do
wish you'd go to your room and keep quiet. I understand what I want,
and you don't."
The two brides, each in their respective dressing-rooms, were
receiving those attentions which belong to the central figures of the
tableau.
Marie, the only remaining unmarried sister, who had been spending
the winter in Philadelphia, had charge, as dressing-maid, of
one bride, and Eva of the other. There was the usual amount of
catastrophes--laces that broke in critical moments, when somebody had
to be sent tearing out distractedly for another; gloves that split
across the back on trying; coiffures that came abominably late, after
keeping everybody waiting, and then had to be pulled to pieces and
made all over; in short, no one item of the delightful jumble of
confusions, incident to a wedding, was missing.
The little chapel was dressed with flowers, and was a bower of
sweetness; and, as St. John had planned, there was space reserved for
the Sunday-school children and the regular attendants of the mission.
Besides those, there was a goodly select show of what Aunt Maria
looked upon as the choice jewels of rank and fashion.
Dr. Gracey performed the double ceremony with great dignity and
solemnity; but the reporters, who fought for good places to see the
show, and Miss Gusher and Miss Vapors, were disappointed. There was
only the plain old Church of England service--neither less nor more.
Mrs. Van Arsdel, and other soft-hearted ladies, in different degrees
of family connection, did the proper amount of tender weeping upon
their best laced pocket handkerchiefs; and everybody said the brides
looked _so_ lovely.
Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey had excellent situations to see the whole,
and Dinah, standing right behind them, broke out into ejaculations
of smothered rapture, from time to time, in Mrs. Betsey's ear.
Dinah was so boiling over with delight that, but for this tolerated
escape-valve, there might have been some explosion.
Just as the ceremonies had closed, Mrs. Betsey heard Dinah whispering
hoarsely:
"Good Lor'! if dar ain't Jack!"
And sure enough, Jack was there in the church, sitting up as
composedly as a vestryman, and apparently enjoying the spectacle. When
one of the ushers approached to take him out, he raised himself on his
haunches and waved his paws with affability.
Jim caught sight of him just as the wedded party were turning from the
altar to leave the church, and the sight was altogether too much for
his risibility.
The fact was that Jack had been the subject of great discussion and an
elaborate locking up that morning. But divining an intention on the
part of his mistresses to go somewhere, he had determined not to be
left. So he had leaped out of a window upon a back shed, and thence to
the ground, and had followed the coach at discreet distance, and so
was "in at the death."