WEDDING CARDS.
"Now she adores thee as one without spot,
Dreams not of sorrow to darken her lot,
Joyful, yet tearful, I yield her to thee;
Take her, the light of thy dwelling to be."
Fair Lulu found so little time amid the preparations that went so
swiftly forward for her marriage that she was very glad to avail
herself of Grace's offered assistance in looking after her poor people,
her missionary box, &c., and so the lonely and depressed young creature
found something to occupy her time as well as to fill up her thoughts.
She was of great assistance, too, to Lulu in the selection and purchase
of the bridal trousseau in which she took a pleasant feminine interest.
Lulu, who deferred always to her friend's exquisite taste, would suffer
nothing to be purchased until first pronounced _comme il faut_ by Mrs.
Winans; and Bruce Conway, who had returned in the midst of the season
from Washington, and haunted Lulu's steps with lover-like devotion,
declared that his most dangerous rival in Lulu's heart was Mrs. Winans.
The old yearning passion he had felt for Grace had passed into a
dream of the past; something he never liked to recall, because there
was something of pain about it still like the soreness of an old
wound--"what deep wound ever healed without a scar?" But they were very
good friends now--not cordial--they would never be that, but still very
pleasant and genial to each other.
Mrs. Conway, who was very well pleased to see Bruce about to marry,
wished it to be so, Lulu wished it to be so; and these two who had been
so much to each other, and who were so little now, tried, and succeeded
in overcoming a certain embarrassment they felt, and for Lulu's sake,
and not to shadow her happiness, endured each other's presence.
"Mrs. Winans," he had said one day, when some odd chance had left them
alone together in Lulu's parlor, "it is an unpleasant thing to speak
of. Yet I have always wanted to tell you how, from the very depths of
my soul, I am sorry that any folly of mine has brought upon you so much
unmerited suffering. Can you ever forgive me?"
She glanced up at him from the small bit of embroidery that occupied
her glancing white fingers, her eyes a thought bluer for the moment
with the stirring of the still waters that flowed through the dim
fields of memory and the pure young spirit came up a moment to look at
him through those serene orbs.
"Can I, yes," she answered, gravely. "When I pray, nightly, that Our
Father will forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass
against me, my heart is free from ill-feeling toward any one. How else
could I expect to be forgiven?"
And Lulu's entrance, with a song on her happy lips, had put an end to
the conversation that was never again revived between them.
And days, and weeks, and months went by and brought June. In that month
the wedding was to be, and Lulu and her mother, beginning to realize
the parting that loomed up so close before them, began to make April
weather in the home that had been all sunshine.
But "time does not stop for tears." The fateful day came when Lulu,
in her white silk dress, and floating vail and orange blossoms, stood
before the altar and took on her sweet lips the vow to be faithful
until death do us part, and, as in a dream, she was whirled back to her
home to the wedding reception and breakfast, after which she was to
depart on that European tour.
Is there any need to describe it all? Do not all wedding breakfasts
look and taste very nearly alike? Do not all our dear "five hundred
friends" say the same agreeable things when they congratulate us? Is
it not to be supposed that the bridal reception of the charming Miss
Clendenon and the elegant Bruce Conway is _comme il faut_? We are not
good at describing such things, dear reader, so we will leave it all to
your imagination, which we know will do it ample justice. We want to
follow Captain Clendenon and Mrs. Winans as they slowly promenade the
back parlor where the wedding gifts are displayed for the pleasure of
the wedding guests.
"Now, is not that an exquisite set of bronzes?" she is saying, with her
hand lightly touching his arm. "And that silver tea-service from the
Bernards--is it not superb? That statuette I have never seen equaled.
Ah, see! there is the gift of Major Fontenay, that ice-cream set in
silver, lined with gold. That is generous in him--is it not, poor
fellow?"
"To my mind, that exquisitely bound Bible is the prettiest thing in the
collection," he returns.
"It is beautiful. That is from her Sunday-school children. This ruby
necklace, set in gold and pearls, is from Mrs. Conway----"
"And this?" he touches a sandal-wood jewel casket, satin-lined,
and holding a pair of slender dead-gold bracelets with monograms
exquisitely wrought in diamonds--"this is----"
"My gift to Lulu."
"Oh! they are beautiful, as are all the things. But, do you know, Mrs.
Winans, that I am so old-fashioned in my ideas that I do not approve
of the habit of making wedding presents--no, I do not mean where
friendship or love prompts the gift--but the indiscriminate practice,
you understand!"
"You are right; but in the case of your sister, Captain Clendenon, I
think that the most of her very pretty collection of wedding gifts are
the spontaneous expressions of genuine affection and respect. Lulu is
very much beloved among her circle of friends."
"You, at least," he says, reflectively, "will miss her greatly. You
have so long honored her by your preference for her society and
companionship. How will you fill up the long months of her absence?"
She sighs softly.
"She has left me a precious charge--all her poor to look after, her
heathen fund, her sewing society--much that has been her sole charge
heretofore, and which I fear may be but imperfectly fulfilled by me.
Still I will do my best."
"You always do your best, I think, in all that you undertake," says
this loyal heart.
"Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, I think," she
answers, with a faint flush evoked by his quiet meed of praise.
Then people begin to flock in to look at the wedding gifts and at Grace
Winans, who is the loveliest thing of all. She has on a wedding garment
in the shape of pale violet silk, with overdress of cool muslin,
trimmed with Valenciennes, white kid gloves and turquois ornaments
set in pearls. The wedding guests wore their bonnets, and she had a
flimsy affair of white lace studded with pansies on the top of her
graceful head. Her dress was somewhat after the style of fashionable
half-mourning. She had selected it purposely because not knowing if she
were wife or widow a more showy attire was repugnant to her feelings.
"This," she said, touching a costly little prayer-book with golden
cross, monogram, and clasps. "This, I fancy, is from you."
"You are right," he answered. "This set of the poets so handsomely
bound is from mother. But are you not weary of looking at all these
things? Shall we not go and find Lulu?"
"By the way," she says, idly, as they slowly pass through the politely
staring throng, exchanging frequent nods and smiles with acquaintances,
and occasional compliments with more intimate friends, "there is a
report--have you heard it?--from Memphis, Tennessee--of the _yellow
fever_."
"Yes," he answers, slowly. "I have heard the faintest rumor of it,"
looking down with a cloud in his clear eyes at the fair inscrutable
face. "Are you worried about it? I remember to have heard you say your
nearest relatives were there."
"Only distant relatives," she answers, composedly. "I am no more
worried about them than about the other inhabitants of that city. My
relatives had little sympathy for me in the days of my bereavement and
destitution, and though one may overlook and forgive such things one
does not easily forget."
He was looking at her all the time she was speaking, though her eyes
had not lifted to his. On the sweet, outwardly serene face he saw the
impress of a growing purpose. What it was he dared not whisper to his
own heart.
The cloud only leaves his brow when they reach his radiant sister. She
stands beneath a bridal arch of fragrant white blossoms, roses, and
lilies, and orange blossoms dropping their pendant leaves down over
her head as she receives the congratulations and adieus of her friends
before she goes to change her bridal robe for the traveling-dress in
which she is to start for the other shores of the Atlantic. Conway is
beside her, nonchalant, smiling, handsome, very well satisfied with
himself and the world. As his glance falls on the fair, pensive face of
the Senator's deserted wife, the smile forsakes his lip, one sigh is
given to the memory of "what might have been," and turning again to his
young bride, the past is put away from him forever, and he is content.
And presently the new-made Mrs. Conway flits up stairs with Gracie, to
array herself in the sober gray traveling-silk.
Grace parts the misty folds of the bridal vail and kisses the
pearl-fair forehead.
"Oh, darling!" she whispers, "may God be very good to you--may he bless
you in your union with the man of your choice."
Lulu's tears, always lying near the surface, begin to flow.
"Oh, Gracie," she says, suddenly, "if all should not be as we fear--if
I should chance to see your husband on the shores of Europe, may I tell
him--remember he has suffered so much--may I tell him that you take
back the words you said in the first agony of your baby's loss?"
"What was it I said?" asked Gracie, with soft surprise.
"Do you not remember the night you were taken ill, when you were half
delirious, and he came to see you----"
"_Did_ he come to see me?" interrupts Grace.
"Certainly--don't you remember? You were half delirious, and you
fancied your husband had hidden away the child to worry you, and you
said----"
"I said--oh, what did I say, Lulu?" breathed the listener, impatiently.
Lulu stopped short, looking, in surprise, at the other.
"Gracie, is it possible that you were entirely delirious, and that you
recollect nothing of your husband's visit and your refusal to see him?"
"This is the first I ever knew of it," said Grace, sadly; "but go on,
Lulu, and tell me, please, what I did say."
"You refused to see him, though entreated to do so by Mrs. Conway; you
said you would never see him--never, never--unless he came with the
missing child in his arms."
"Did I say all that, Lulu?" asked Grace, in repentant surprise.
"All that, and more. You said that if he attempted to enter your room
you would spring from the window--and he was in the parlor; he heard
every word from your own lips."
"Oh, Lulu, I must have been delirious; I remember nothing of all
that, and it has, perhaps, kept him from me all the time," came in
a moan from the unhappy young creature, as she leaned against the
toilet-table, with one hand clasping her heart.
Lulu caught up a bottle of eau-de-cologne and showered the fine,
fragrant spray over the white face, just as Mrs. Clendenon hurried in.
"My darling, do you know you should have been down stairs before this
time--hurry, do."
And too much absorbed in her own grief to observe the ill-concealed
agitation of Mrs. Winans, or attributing it to her sorrow at losing
Lulu, the mother assisted the young bride to change her white silk for
her traveling one.
Then for one moment Lulu flung herself in passionate tears on her
friend's breast, with a hundred incoherent injunctions and promises,
from which she was disturbed by the entrance of Mrs. Conway, radiantly
announcing that the carriage waited and they had no time to spare. And
Lulu, lingering only for a blessing from her mother's lips, a prayerful
"God bless you" from her brother's, went forth with hope on her path,
love in her heart, and the sunshine on her head, to the new life she
had chosen.
When the last guest had departed, the "banquet fled, the garland dead,"
Mrs. Winans removed her bonnet, and spent the remainder of the day in
diverting the sad mother whose heart was aching at the loss of her
youngest darling.
"It seems as if all the sunshine had gone out of the house with her,"
Willard said, sadly, to Grace, as they stood looking together at the
deserted bridal arch that seemed drooping and fading, as if in grief
for the absent head over which it had lately blossomed. "I fancied we
should keep our baby with us always in the dear home nest; but she
is gone, so soon--a wife before I had realized she had passed the
boundaries of childhood."
"The months of absence will pass away very quickly," she said, gently,
trying to comfort him as best she could, "and you will have her back
with you."
"I don't know," he said, with a half-sob in his manly voice, lifting
a long, trailing spray of white blossoms that an hour before he had
seen resting against the dear brown head of his sister, touching it
tenderly to his lips--"I don't know, Mrs. Winans. I don't believe in
presentiments--I am not at all superstitious--but to-day, when I kissed
my sister's lips in farewell, a chill crept through my frame, a voice,
that seemed as clear and distinct as any human voice, seemed to whisper
in my ear, '_Never again on this side of eternity!_' _What_ did it
mean?"
Ah! Willard Clendenon--that the fleshly vail that separates your
pure spirit from the angels is so clear that a gleam of your near
immortality glimmered through!