had let him make a stand about the clothes he’d wear I’d have been
throwing away my victory. So I told him he had to have a dress-suit.
He’d need it for my wedding as well as Milly’s. I didn’t tell him before
Cousin Grace; I waited till he drove me back to Cousin Jane’s. And next
day I went over again to sit up with him about it.”
“He ought to have admired your persistence.”
“That’s just what I told him. He began to weaken a little, so I brought
him over and showed him the Perchery as a reward. And he went this very
day. The tailor said he couldn’t make it in time, and Cousin Jason
crowed and said he’d told me so. But I explained to the tailor that he
could make it, and that he had it to do. So he agreed. We bought gloves,
and a tie, and everything; and I made him get his hair cut, and he’s
going to look scrumptious. You really haven’t an idea what can be done
with an old relation till you begin to furbish him up.”
* * * * *
_October 30th._ Milly was married in church, and she and Cousin Jason
and Grace stopped by here on their way to the wedding for me to see
them. Milly was beautiful, and no bride but Caro could be sweeter; and
Grace, all in silvery gray, with that deep light in her eyes, was like
nothing but the Moonlight Sonata. As to Cousin Jason, he was furbished
almost past recognition; and my admiration pleased him like a boy.
Caro fluttered about them, radiant in her bridesmaid’s dress, and
followed by David’s adoring eyes. The Peon escorted Grace; and after
awhile I watched the carriages coming back. Before they left for the
station Caro telephoned me, and Uncle Milton wheeled me down to the
gate, where I waved my handkerchief and cast my handful of rice as they
drove by, Milly’s exquisite face alight with a look her husband may well
carry in his heart always.
* * * * *
_November 29th._ How fast the days slip by! Milly came home early in the
week, and yesterday was the Thanksgiving I prophesied about to David
last spring.
Certainly I am going all about the house; and to emphasize my success as
a seer we had a family gathering at Thanksgiving dinner. The bride and
groom were here, of course, and Grace, who leaves as soon as Caro is
married, and Cousin Jason—resplendent, by the way, in his dress-suit,
which he considered a capital joke on Caro. Cousin Jane looked not a day
over fifty, and Cousin Chad had done some furbishing himself to keep her
company.
To think of a dinner party at Bird Corners again, after all these years!
The Peon and I beamed at one another from the ends of the table; and in
the centre, the bride and groom faced the bride-and-groom-to-be, with
the older people tucked in at the corners. And it was all so good to see
and hear—such a fairy tale come true—that, as I lie here today
resting, I am just too happy for words.
David and Caro are to be married next Wednesday—married here, at Bird
Corners. I dare not risk going to the church yet, and Cousin Jane’s is
quite as far away. Besides, both the children want it here, and it is
and always has been Caro’s home as well as David’s. Cousin Jane has
really been sweet about it; and it is all settled that she and Caro are
to come over in time for me to help dress the bride. Grace is coming
tomorrow, and will stay with me until it is all over and she goes away
herself.
* * * * *
_December 9th._ The wedding day was perfect—cloudless blue, and the
little red wren singing his matins in the lilac almost before it was
light. I am glad the child is a winter bride. She can afford to ignore
the seasons, for she carries spring-time in her heart, like her namesake
out of doors.
It was all beautiful, and I with my own hands helped to make it so. But
nothing about it is very clear to me except the look in the children’s
eyes—_our_ children, both of them, at last. Caro’s joy had sobered her,
so that she walked the earth in radiance, instead of fluttering,
light-winged, above it; but David’s joy had set him on the heights. Oh,
my son, my son, child of my soul always! I could not have borne the look
upon his face if I had not known Caro through and through. But now I am
not afraid.
Grace went the day after the wedding, and left me in a world where real
and Make-Believe are blended into one. The Peon comes home early, and
together we walk across the grass to the Perchery, and talk of how he
wheeled me there in those sorrowful days last spring, when it seemed the
knoll would never know the nest we longed to see there. And in the
evening we sit in the firelight together, and hear the childish voices
of long ago in the room, and childish feet in the hall. And we laugh
over the good old days, and smile over the new days, which are better.
And before I go to bed we go to the window and look at the children’s
house, standing clear against the stars. And they come and stand beside
us there, their tiny hands in ours—the dear, long-ago little children,
who will be with us always, though the big children, dearer still, come
and go across the grass between their home and ours.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without
note. When variation in spelling or hyphenation occurred, majority use
has been employed.
[End of _In the Garden of Delight_, by Lily Hardy Hammond]
End of Project Gutenberg's In the Garden of Delight, by Lily Hardy Hammond