AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.
On Thanksgiving afternoon Robert again said, "Nan, comrade, can't we be
married tomorrow out under our very own pepper tree."
"Son," Mrs. Widdemere smilingly protested, "what an uncivilized
suggestion for you to make."
"That's the very reason why I wish it," the lad replied. "Five years ago
Nan and I met out under that tree and we both declared that we wanted to
be uncivilized. I remember that I was pining to be a wild Indian or a
pirate, but instead, we have both spent the intervening years in
polishing our manners and intellects." Then turning to the girl, he
pleaded, "Lady Red Bird, let me have my own way just this once, and then
you may have your own way forever after."
Nan laughed happily. "But Robert," she said, "ought there not to be a
trousseau before one is married?"
"Elenan." It was Monsieur Alecsandri who was speaking. "I was so
confident I would find you, that I brought a trunk full of garments that
were your dear mother's. It was the trousseau which I had provided for
her when I betrothed her to a descendant of Prince Couza. The gowns are
the loveliest that I could procure, but they were never worn."
"Oh, Uncle Basil." (He had asked the girl to call him by his Christian
name.) "How glad I shall be to have them."
"But, Nan comrade," Robert repeated, "you have not yet said that I may
plan our wedding and our trip away."
The girl looked at the lad who was seated on the lounge at her side and
said brightly, "Robert, you plan it all and let it be a surprise for me."
Nan noticed that during the hour that followed Robert glanced at his
watch and several times walked toward the window and gazed out toward the
highway.
"Why are you so restless, son?" his mother had just inquired, when wheels
were heard in the drive, and soon after the call of the heavy iron
knocker resounded through the house. Robert half arose, but sank back to
the lounge when he saw Mrs. Sperry going to the front door.
"Who can it be?" Little Miss Dahlia was quite in a flutter, but Nan had
heard a voice inquiring if Miss Anne Barrington was at home?
With a cry of joy Nan sprang forward and held the newcomer in a long and
loving embrace. "Phyllis, I can't believe that it is you!" she cried as
she stood back to survey the pretty, laughing face of her dearest friend.
"Why, it seems too much like a story book to be really true."
Then she led the newcomer into the library where she was gladly welcomed
by all who knew her and introduced by Nan to "my uncle, Monsieur
Alecsandri."
Phyllis, who never had believed that her room-mate was really a gypsy,
took the arrival of an aristocratic uncle quite as a matter of course,
and when they were all seated, Nan, still curious, exclaimed: "Do tell me
how you happened to know that it was time to come to my wedding."
Phyllis looked up at Robert with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes.
"Shall I tell?" she asked.
"I'll tell," that lad replied. "Last week I wired my fair cousin to board
a train at once for the West if she wished to attend our wedding which I
hoped would be solemnized on Thanksgiving day."
"Robert! How could you invite a guest to our wedding before you had asked
me to marry you?" Nan laughingly declared.
"It was rather presumptuous," the lad confessed, "but all's well that
ends well."
Monsieur Alecsandri accepted Miss Barrington's invitation to remain in
her home, and Phyllis spent the night with Nan, for they had much to talk
about. The latter maiden often fell to wondering what Robert's surprising
plan was for their wedding.