MISS BILLY--MARRIED
By Eleanor H. Porter
Author Of Pollyanna, Etc.
TO My Cousin Maud
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING
II. FOR WILLIAM--A HOME
III. BILLY SPEAKS HER MIND
IV. JUST LIKE BILLY
V. TIGER SKINS
VI. “THE PAINTING LOOK”
VII. THE BIG BAD QUARREL
VIII. BILLY CULTIVATES A COMFORTABLE INDIFFERENCE
IX. THE DINNER BILLY TRIED TO GET
X. THE DINNER BILLY GOT
XI. CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING
XII. FOR BILLY--SOME ADVICE
XIII. PETE
XIV. WHEN BERTRAM CAME HOME
XV. AFTER THE STORM
XVI. INTO TRAINING FOR MARY ELLEN
XVII. THE EFFICIENCY STAR--AND BILLY
XVIII. BILLY TRIES HER HAND AT “MANAGING”
XIX. A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK FOR CYRIL
XX. ARKWRIGHT'S EYES ARE OPENED
XXI. BILLY TAKES HER TURN AT QUESTIONING
XXII. A DOT AND A DIMPLE
XXIII. BILLY AND THE ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY
XXIV. A NIGHT OFF
XXV. “SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT”
XXVI. GHOSTS THAT WALKED FOR BERTRAM
XXVII. THE MOTHER--THE WIFE
XXVIII. CONSPIRATORS
XXIX. CHESS
XXX. BY A BABY'S HAND
MISS BILLY--MARRIED
CHAPTER I. SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING
“I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,” chanted the white-robed clergyman.
“'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'” echoed the tall young bridegroom, his
eyes gravely tender.
“To my wedded wife.”
“'To my wedded wife.'” The bridegroom's voice shook a little.
“To have and to hold from this day forward.”
“'To have and to hold from this day forward.'” Now the young voice rang
with triumph. It had grown strong and steady.
“For better for worse.”
“'For better for worse.'”
“For richer for poorer,” droned the clergyman, with the weariness of
uncounted repetitions.
“'For richer for poorer,'” avowed the bridegroom, with the decisive
emphasis of one to whom the words are new and significant.
“In sickness and in health.”
“'In sickness and in health.'”
“To love and to cherish.”
“'To love and to cherish.'” The younger voice carried infinite
tenderness now.
“Till death us do part.”
“'Till death us do part,'” repeated the bridegroom's lips; but everybody
knew that what his heart said was: “Now, and through all eternity.”
“According to God's holy ordinance.”
“'According to God's holy ordinance.'”
“And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
“'And thereto I plight thee my troth.'”
There was a faint stir in the room. In one corner a white-haired woman
blinked tear-wet eyes and pulled a fleecy white shawl more closely about
her shoulders. Then the minister's voice sounded again.
“I, Billy, take thee, Bertram.”
“'I, Billy, take thee, Bertram.'”
This time the echoing voice was a feminine one, low and sweet, but
clearly distinct, and vibrant with joyous confidence, on through one
after another of the ever familiar, but ever impressive phrases of the
service that gives into the hands of one man and of one woman the future
happiness, each of the other.
The wedding was at noon. That evening Mrs. Kate Hartwell, sister of the
bridegroom, wrote the following letter:
BOSTON, July 15th.
“MY DEAR HUSBAND:--Well, it's all over with, and they're married. I
couldn't do one thing to prevent it. Much as ever as they would even
listen to what I had to say--and when they knew how I had hurried East
to say it, too, with only two hours' notice!
“But then, what can you expect? From time immemorial lovers never
did have any sense; and when those lovers are such irresponsible
flutterbudgets as Billy and Bertram--!
“And such a wedding! I couldn't do anything with _that_, either, though
I tried hard. They had it in Billy's living-room at noon, with nothing
but the sun for light. There was no maid of honor, no bridesmaids, no
wedding cake, no wedding veil, no presents (except from the family, and
from that ridiculous Chinese cook of brother William's, Ding Dong, or
whatever his name is. He tore in just before the wedding ceremony, and
insisted upon seeing Billy to give her a wretched little green stone
idol, which he declared would bring her 'heap plenty velly good luckee'
if she received it before she 'got married.' I wouldn't have the
hideous, grinning thing around, but William says it's real jade, and
very valuable, and of course Billy was crazy over it--or pretended to
be). There was no trousseau, either, and no reception. There was no
anything but the bridegroom; and when I tell you that Billy actually
declared that was all she wanted, you will understand how absurdly in
love she is--in spite of all those weeks and weeks of broken engagement
when I, at least, supposed she had come to her senses, until I got that
crazy note from Bertram a week ago saying they were to be married today.
“I can't say that I've got any really satisfactory explanation of the
matter. Everything has been in such a hubbub, and those two ridiculous
children have been so afraid they wouldn't be together every minute
possible, that any really rational conversation with either of them was
out of the question. When Billy broke the engagement last spring none of
us knew why she had done it, as you know; and I fancy we shall be almost
as much in the dark as to why she has--er--mended it now, as you might
say. As near as I can make out, however, she thought he didn't want her,
and he thought she didn't want him. I believe matters were still further
complicated by a girl Bertram was painting, and a young fellow that used
to sing with Billy--a Mr. Arkwright.
“Anyhow, things came to a head last spring, Billy broke the engagement
and fled to parts unknown with Aunt Hannah, leaving Bertram here in
Boston to alternate between stony despair and reckless gayety, according
to William; and it was while he was in the latter mood that he had that
awful automobile accident and broke his arm--and almost his neck. He was
wildly delirious, and called continually for Billy.
“Well, it seems Billy didn't know all this; but a week ago she
came home, and in some way found out about it, I think through
Pete--William's old butler, you know. Just exactly what happened I
can't say, but I do know that she dragged poor old Aunt Hannah down
to Bertram's at some unearthly hour, and in the rain; and Aunt Hannah
couldn't do a thing with her. All Billy would say, was, 'Bertram wants
me.' And Aunt Hannah told me that if I could have seen Billy's face I'd
have known that she'd have gone to Bertram then if he'd been at the top
of the Himalaya Mountains, or at the bottom of the China Sea. So perhaps
it's just as well--for Aunt Hannah's sake, at least--that he was in no
worse place than on his own couch at home. Anyhow, she went, and in half
an hour they blandly informed Aunt Hannah that they were going to be
married to-day.
“Aunt Hannah said she tried to stop that, and get them to put it off
till October (the original date, you know), but Bertram was obdurate.
And when he declared he'd marry her the next day if it wasn't for
the new license law, Aunt Hannah said she gave up for fear he'd get a
special dispensation, or go to the Governor or the President, or do some
other dreadful thing. (What a funny old soul Aunt Hannah is!) Bertram
told _me_ that he should never feel safe till Billy was really his; that
she'd read something, or hear something, or think something, or get
a letter from me (as if anything _I_ could say would do any good-or
harm!), and so break the engagement again.
“Well, she's his now, so I suppose he's satisfied; though, for my part,
I haven't changed my mind at all. I still say that they are not one bit
suited to each other, and that matrimony will simply ruin his career.
Bertram never has loved and never will love any girl long--except to
paint. But if he simply _would_ get married, why couldn't he have taken
a nice, sensible domestic girl that would have kept him fed and mended?
“Not but that I'm very fond of Billy, as you know, dear; but imagine
Billy as a wife--worse yet, a mother! Billy's a dear girl, but she knows
about as much of real life and its problems as--as our little Kate. A
more impulsive, irresponsible, regardless-of-consequences young woman
I never saw. She can play divinely, and write delightful songs, I'll
acknowledge; but what is that when a man is hungry, or has lost a
button?
“Billy has had her own way, and had everything she wanted for years
now--a rather dangerous preparation for marriage, especially marriage
to a fellow like Bertram who has had _his_ own way and everything _he's_
wanted for years. Pray, what's going to happen when those ways conflict,
and neither one gets the thing wanted?
“And think of her ignorance of cooking--but, there! What's the use?
They're married now, and it can't be helped.
“Mercy, what a letter I've written! But I, had to talk to some one;
besides, I'd promised I to let you know how matters stood as soon as I
could. As you see, though, my trip East has been practically useless. I
saw the wedding, to be sure, but I didn't prevent it, or even postpone
it--though I meant to do one or the other, else I should never have made
that tiresome journey half across the continent at two hours' notice.
“However, we shall see what we shall see. As for me, I'm dead tired.
Good night.
“Affectionately yours,
“KATE.”
Quite naturally, Mrs. Kate Hartwell was not the only one who was
thinking that evening of the wedding. In the home of Bertram's brother
Cyril, Cyril himself was at the piano, but where his thoughts were was
plain to be seen--or rather, heard; for from under his fingers there
came the Lohengrin wedding march until all the room seemed filled with
the scent of orange blossoms, the mistiness of floating veils, and the
echoing peals of far-away organs heralding the “Fair Bride and Groom.”
Over by the table in the glowing circle of the shaded lamp, sat Marie,
Cyril's wife, a dainty sewing-basket by her side. Her hands, however,
lay idly across the stocking in her lap.
As the music ceased, she drew a long sigh.
What a perfectly beautiful wedding that was! she breathed.
Cyril whirled about on the piano stool.
“It was a very sensible wedding,” he said with emphasis.
“They looked so happy--both of them,” went on Marie, dreamily; “so--so
sort of above and beyond everything about them, as if nothing ever, ever
could trouble them--_now_.”
Cyril lifted his eyebrows.
“Humph! Well, as I said before, it was a very _sensible_ wedding,” he
declared.
This time Marie noticed the emphasis. She laughed, though her eyes
looked a little troubled.
“I know, dear, of course, what you mean. _I_ thought our wedding was
beautiful; but I would have made it simpler if I'd realized in time how
you--you--”
“How I abhorred pink teas and purple pageants,” he finished for her,
with a frowning smile. “Oh, well, I stood it--for the sake of what it
brought me.” His face showed now only the smile; the frown had vanished.
For a man known for years to his friends as a “hater of women and all
other confusion,” Cyril Henshaw was looking remarkably well-pleased with
himself.
His wife of less than a year colored as she met his gaze. Hurriedly she
picked up her needle.
The man laughed happily at her confusion.
“What are you doing? Is that my stocking?” he demanded.
A look, half pain, half reproach, crossed her face.
“Why, Cyril, of course not! You--you told me not to, long ago. You said
my darns made--bunches.
“Ho! I meant I didn't want to _wear_ them,” retorted the man, upon whom
the tragic wretchedness of that half-sobbed “bunches” had been quite
lost. “I love to see you _mending_ them,” he finished, with an approving
glance at the pretty little picture of domesticity before him.
A peculiar expression came to Marie's eyes.
“Why, Cyril, you mean you _like_ to have me mend them just for--for the
sake of seeing me do it, when you _know_ you won't ever wear them?”
“Sure!” nodded the man, imperturbably. Then, with a sudden laugh, he
asked: “I wonder now, does Billy love to mend socks?”
Marie smiled, but she sighed, too, and shook her head.
“I'm afraid not, Cyril.”
“Nor cook?”
Marie laughed outright this time. The vaguely troubled look had fled
from her eyes
“Oh, Billy's helped me beat eggs and butter sometimes, but I never knew
her to cook a thing or want to cook a thing, but once; then she spent
nearly two weeks trying to learn to make puddings--for you.”
“For _me!_”
Marie puckered her lips queerly.
“Well, I supposed they were for you at the time. At all events she was
trying to make them for some one of you boys; probably it was really for
Bertram, though.”
“Humph!” grunted Cyril. Then, after a minute, he observed: “I judge Kate
thinks Billy'll never make them--for anybody. I'm afraid Sister Kate
isn't pleased.”
“Oh, but Mrs. Hartwell was--was disappointed in the wedding,” apologized
Marie, quickly. “You know she wanted it put off anyway, and she didn't
like such a simple one.
“Hm-m; as usual Sister Kate forgot it wasn't her funeral--I mean, her
wedding,” retorted Cyril, dryly. “Kate is never happy, you know, unless
she's managing things.”
“Yes, I know,” nodded Marie, with a frowning smile of recollection at
certain features of her own wedding.
“She doesn't approve of Billy's taste in guests, either,” remarked
Cyril, after a moment's silence.
“I thought her guests were lovely,” spoke up Marie, in quick defense.
“Of course, most of her social friends are away--in July; but Billy is
never a society girl, you know, in spite of the way Society is always
trying to lionize her and Bertram.”
“Oh, of course Kate knows that; but she says it seems as if Billy
needn't have gone out and gathered in the lame and the halt and the
blind.”
“Nonsense!” cried Marie, with unusual sharpness for her. “I suppose she
said that just because of Mrs. Greggory's and Tommy Dunn's crutches.”
“Well, they didn't make a real festive-looking wedding party, you must
admit,” laughed Cyril; “what with the bridegroom's own arm in a sling,
too! But who were they all, anyway?”
“Why, you knew Mrs. Greggory and Alice, of course--and Pete,” smiled
Marie. “And wasn't Pete happy? Billy says she'd have had Pete if she had
no one else; that there wouldn't have been any wedding, anyway, if it
hadn't been for his telephoning Aunt Hannah that night.”
“Yes; Will told me.”
“As for Tommy and the others--most of them were those people that Billy
had at her home last summer for a two weeks' vacation--people, you
know, too poor to give themselves one, and too proud to accept one from
ordinary charity. Billy's been following them up and doing little things
for them ever since--sugarplums and frosting on their cake, she calls
it; and they adore her, of course. I think it was lovely of her to have
them, and they did have such a good time! You should have seen Tommy
when you played that wedding march for Billy to enter the room. His poor
little face was so transfigured with joy that I almost cried, just to
look at him. Billy says he loves music--poor little fellow!”
“Well, I hope they'll be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies.
Certainly they looked happy enough to-day,” declared Cyril, patting a
yawn as he rose to his feet. “I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome,
though, about now,” he added.
“Yes,” smiled Marie, mistily, as she gathered up her work. “I know what
Aunt Hannah's doing. She's helping Rosa put the house to rights, and
she's stopping to cry over every slipper and handkerchief of Billy's she
finds. And she'll do that until that funny clock of hers strikes twelve,
then she'll say 'Oh, my grief and conscience--midnight!' But the next
minute she'll remember that it's only half-past eleven, after all, and
she'll send Rosa to bed and sit patting Billy's slipper in her lap till
it really is midnight by all the other clocks.”
Cyril laughed appreciatively.
“Well, I know what Will is doing,” he declared.
“Will is in Bertram's den dozing before the fireplace with Spunkie
curled up in his lap.”
As it happened, both these surmises were not far from right. In the
Strata, the Henshaws' old Beacon Street home, William was sitting before
the fireplace with the cat in his lap, but he was not dozing. He was
talking.
“Spunkie,” he was saying, “your master, Bertram, got married to-day--and
to Miss Billy. He'll be bringing her home one of these days--your new
mistress. And such a mistress! Never did cat or house have a better!
“Just think; for the first time in years this old place is to know the
touch of a woman's hand--and that's what it hasn't known for almost
twenty years, except for those few short months six years ago when
a dark-eyed girl and a little gray kitten (that was Spunk, your
predecessor, you know) blew in and blew out again before we scarcely
knew they were here. That girl was Miss Billy, and she was a dear then,
just as she is now, only now she's coming here to stay. She's coming
home, Spunkie; and she'll make it a home for you, for me, and for all of
us. Up to now, you know, it hasn't really been a home, for years--just
us men, so. It'll be very different, Spunkie, as you'll soon find out.
Now mind, madam! We must show that we appreciate all this: no tempers,
no tantrums, no showing of claws, no leaving our coats--either yours or
mine--on the drawing-room chairs, no tracking in of mud on clean rugs
and floors! For we're going to have a home, Spunkie--a home!”
At Hillside, Aunt Hannah was, indeed, helping Rosa to put the house to
rights, as Marie had said. She was crying, too, over a glove she had
found on Billy's piano; but she was crying over something else, also.
Not only had she lost Billy, but she had lost her home.
To be sure, nothing had been said during that nightmare of a week of
hurry and confusion about Aunt Hannah's future; but Aunt Hannah knew
very well how it must be. This dear little house on the side of Corey
Hill was Billy's home, and Billy would not need it any longer. It
would be sold, of course; and she, Aunt Hannah, would go back to a
“second-story front” and loneliness in some Back Bay boarding-house; and
a second story front and loneliness would not be easy now, after these
years of home--and Billy.
No wonder, indeed, that Aunt Hannah sat crying and patting the little
white glove in her hand. No wonder, too, that--being Aunt Hannah--she
reached for the shawl near by and put it on, shiveringly. Even July,
to-night, was cold--to Aunt Hannah.
In yet another home that evening was the wedding of Billy Neilson and
Bertram Henshaw uppermost in thought and speech. In a certain little
South-End flat where, in two rented rooms, lived Alice Greggory and
her crippled mother, Alice was talking to Mr. M. J. Arkwright, commonly
known to his friends as “Mary Jane,” owing to the mystery in which he
had for so long shrouded his name.
Arkwright to-night was plainly moody and ill at ease.
“You're not listening. You're not listening at all,” complained Alice
Greggory at last, reproachfully.
With a visible effort the man roused himself.
“Indeed I am,” he maintained.
“I thought you'd be interested in the wedding. You used to be
friends--you and Billy.” The girl's voice still vibrated with reproach.
There was a moment's silence; then, a little harshly, the man said:
“Perhaps--because I wanted to be more than--a friend--is why you're not
satisfied with my interest now.”
A look that was almost terror came to Alice Greggory's eyes. She flushed
painfully, then grew very white.
“You mean--”
“Yes,” he nodded dully, without looking up. “I cared too much for her. I
supposed Henshaw was just a friend--till too late.”
There was a breathless hush before, a little unsteadily, the girl
stammered:
“Oh, I'm so sorry--so very sorry! I--I didn't know.”
“No, of course you didn't. I've almost told you, though, lots of times;
you've been so good to me all these weeks.” He raised his head now, and
looked at her, frank comradeship in his eyes.
The girl stirred restlessly. Her eyes swerved a little under his level
gaze.
“Oh, but I've done nothing--n-nothing,” she stammered. Then, at the
light tap of crutches on a bare floor she turned in obvious relief. “Oh,
here's mother. She's been in visiting with Mrs. Delano, our landlady.
Mother, Mr. Arkwright is here.”
Meanwhile, speeding north as fast as steam could carry them, were the
bride and groom. The wondrousness of the first hour of their journey
side by side had become a joyous certitude that always it was to be like
this now.
“Bertram,” began the bride, after a long minute of eloquent silence.
“Yes, love.”
“You know our wedding was very different from most weddings.”
“Of course it was!”
“Yes, but _really_ it was. Now listen.” The bride's voice grew tenderly
earnest. “I think our marriage is going to be different, too.”
“Different?”
“Yes.” Billy's tone was emphatic. “There are so many common, everyday
marriages where--where--Why, Bertram, as if you could ever be to me
like--like Mr. Carleton is, for instance!”
“Like Mr. Carleton is--to you?” Bertram's voice was frankly puzzled.
“No, no! As Mr. Carleton is to Mrs. Carleton, I mean.”
“Oh!” Bertram subsided in relief.
“And the Grahams and Whartons, and the Freddie Agnews, and--and a lot
of others. Why, Bertram, I've seen the Grahams and the Whartons not even
speak to each other a whole evening, when they've been at a dinner, or
something; and I've seen Mrs. Carleton not even seem to know her husband
came into the room. I don't mean quarrel, dear. Of course we'd never
_quarrel!_ But I mean I'm sure we shall never get used to--to you being
you, and I being I.”
“Indeed we sha'n't,” agreed Bertram, rapturously.
“Ours is going to be such a beautiful marriage!”
“Of course it will be.”
“And we'll be so happy!”
“I shall be, and I shall try to make you so.”
“As if I could be anything else,” sighed Billy, blissfully. “And now we
_can't_ have any misunderstandings, you see.”
“Of course not. Er--what's that?”
“Why, I mean that--that we can't ever repeat hose miserable weeks of
misunderstanding. Everything is all explained up. I _know_, now, that
you don't love Miss Winthrop, or just girls--any girl--to paint. You
love me. Not the tilt of my chin, nor the turn of my head; but _me_.”
“I do--just you.” Bertram's eyes gave the caress his lips would have
given had it not been for the presence of the man in the seat across the
aisle of the sleeping-car.
“And you--you know now that I love you--just you?”
“Not even Arkwright?”
“Not even Arkwright,” smiled Billy.
There was the briefest of hesitations; then, a little constrainedly,
Bertram asked:
“And you said you--you never _had_ cared for Arkwright, didn't you?”
For the second time in her life Billy was thankful that Bertram's
question had turned upon _her_ love for Arkwright, not Arkwright's love
for her. In Billy's opinion, a man's unrequited love for a girl was his
secret, not hers, and was certainly one that the girl had no right
to tell. Once before Bertram had asked her if she had ever cared for
Arkwright, and then she had answered emphatically, as she did now:
“Never, dear.”
“I thought you said so,” murmured Bertram, relaxing a little.
“I did; besides, didn't I tell you?” she went on airily, “I think he'll
marry Alice Greggory. Alice wrote me all the time I was away, and--oh,
she didn't say anything definite, I'll admit,” confessed Billy, with
an arch smile; “but she spoke of his being there lots, and they used to
know each other years ago, you see. There was almost a romance there,
I think, before the Greggorys lost their money and moved away from all
their friends.”
“Well, he may have her. She's a nice girl--a mighty nice girl,” answered
Bertram, with the unmistakably satisfied air of the man who knows he
himself possesses the nicest girl of them all.
Billy, reading unerringly the triumph in his voice, grew suddenly
grave. She regarded her husband with a thoughtful frown; then she drew a
profound sigh.
“Whew!” laughed Bertram, whimsically. “So soon as this?”
“Bertram!” Billy's voice was tragic.
“Yes, my love.” The bridegroom pulled his face into sobriety; then Billy
spoke, with solemn impressiveness.
“Bertram, I don't know a thing about--cooking--except what I've been
learning in Rosa's cook-book this last week.”
Bertram laughed so loud that the man across the aisle glanced over the
top of his paper surreptitiously.
“Rosa's cook-book! Is that what you were doing all this week?”
“Yes; that is--I tried so hard to learn something,” stammered Billy.
“But I'm afraid I didn't--much; there were so many things for me to
think of, you know, with only a week. I believe I _could_ make peach
fritters, though. They were the last thing I studied.”
Bertram laughed again, uproariously; but, at Billy's unchangingly tragic
face, he grew suddenly very grave and tender.
“Billy, dear, I didn't marry you to--to get a cook,” he said gently.
Billy shook her head.
“I know; but Aunt Hannah said that even if I never expected to cook,
myself, I ought to know how it was done, so to properly oversee it. She
said that--that no woman, who didn't know how to cook and keep house
properly, had any business to be a wife. And, Bertram, I did try,
honestly, all this week. I tried so hard to remember when you sponged
bread and when you kneaded it.”
“I don't ever need--_yours_,” cut in Bertram, shamelessly; but he got
only a deservedly stern glance in return.
“And I repeated over and over again how many cupfuls of flour and
pinches of salt and spoonfuls of baking-powder went into things; but,
Bertram, I simply could not keep my mind on it. Everything, everywhere
was singing to me. And how do you suppose I could remember how many
pinches of flour and spoonfuls of salt and cupfuls of baking-powder went
into a loaf of cake when all the while the very teakettle on the stove
was singing: 'It's all right--Bertram loves me--I'm going to marry
Bertram!'?”
“You darling!” (In spite of the man across the aisle Bertram did
almost kiss her this time.) “As if anybody cared how many cupfuls of
baking-powder went anywhere--with that in your heart!”
“Aunt Hannah says you will--when you're hungry. And Kate said--”
Bertram uttered a sharp word behind his teeth.
“Billy, for heaven's sake don't tell me what Kate said, if you want me
to stay sane, and not attempt to fight somebody--broken arm, and all.
Kate _thinks_ she's kind, and I suppose she means well; but--well, she's
made trouble enough between us already. I've got you now, sweetheart.
You're mine--all mine--” his voice shook, and dropped to a tender
whisper--“'till death us do part.'”
“Yes; 'till death us do part,'” breathed Billy.
And then, for a time, they fell silent.
“'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'” sang the whirring wheels beneath them,
to one.
“'I, Billy, take thee, Bertram,'” sang the whirring wheels beneath them,
to the other. While straight ahead before them both, stretched fair and
beautiful in their eyes, the wondrous path of life which they were to
tread together.