Part 17 (1/2)
”Yes, I know, but I prefer Theodore. Dorry seems a childish sort of name for a grown man. Do you mean to say that you are coming out to the Valley to live?”
”Yes, by-and-by, and you will come to Burnet; we shall just change places. Isn't it nice and queer?”
”It is a sort of double-barrelled International Alliance,” declared Lionel. ”Now let us go down and astonish the others.”
The others _were_ astonished indeed. They were prepared for Johnnie's confession, but had so little thought of Dorry's that for some time he and Imogen stood by unheeded, waiting their turn at explanation.
”Why, Dorry,” cried Elsie at last, ”why are you standing on one side like that with Miss Young? You don't look as surprised as you ought. Did you hear the news before we did? Imogen dear,--it isn't such good news for you as for us.”
”Oh, yes, indeed it is. I am quite as happy in it as you can be.”
”Ladies and gentlemen,” cried Lionel, who was in topping spirits and could not be restrained, ”this shrinking pair also have a tale to tell.
It is a case of 'change partners all round and down the middle.' Let me introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Theo--”
”Lion, you wretched boy, stop!” interrupted Johnnie. ”That's not at all the right way to do it. Let _me_ introduce them. Friends and countrymen, allow the echoes of the Upper East Canyon to present to your favorable consideration the echoes of the Lower East Canyon. We've all been sitting up there, 'unbeknownst,' within a few feet of each other, and none of us could account for the mysterious noises that we heard, till we all started to come home, and met each other on the way down.”
”What kind of noises?” demanded Elsie, in a suffocated voice.
”Oh, cooings and gurglings and soft murmurs of conversation and whisperings. It was very unaccountable indeed, very!”
”Dorry,” said Elsie, next day when she chanced to be alone with him, ”Would you mind if I asked you rather an impertinent question? You needn't answer if you don't want to; but what was it that first put it into your head to fall in love with Imogen Young? I'm very glad that you did, you understand. She will make you a capital wife, and I'm going to be very fond of her,--but still, I should just like to know.”
”I don't know that I could tell you if I tried,” replied her brother.
”How can a man explain that sort of thing? I fell in love because I was destined to fall in love, I suppose. I liked her at the start, and thought her pretty, and all that; and she seemed kind of lonely and left out among you all. And then she's a quiet sort of girl, you know, not so ready at talk as most, or so quick to pick at a fellow or trip him up.
I've always been the slow one in our family, you see, and by way of a change it's rather refres.h.i.+ng to be with a woman who isn't so much brighter than I am. The rest of you jump at an idea and off it again while I'm gathering my wits together to see that there _is_ an idea.
Imogen doesn't do that, and it rather suits me that she shouldn't.
You're all delightful, and I'm very fond of you, I'm sure; but for a wife I think I like some one more like myself.”
”Of all the droll explanations that I ever heard, that is quite the drollest,” said Elsie to her husband afterward. ”The idea of a man's falling in love with a woman because she's duller than his own sisters!
n.o.body but Dorry would ever have thought of it.”
CHAPTER X.
A DOUBLE KNOT.
THE next few days in the High Valley were too full of excitement and discussions to be quite comfortable for anybody. Imogen was seized with compunctions at leaving Lionel without a housekeeper, and proposed to Dorry that their wedding should be deferred till the others were ready to be married also,--a suggestion to which Dorry would not listen for a moment. There were long business-talks between the ranch partners as to hows and whens, letters to be written, and innumerable confabulations between the three sisters, in which Imogen took part, for she counted as a fourth sister now. Clover and Elsie listened and planned and advised, and found their chief difficulty to consist in hiding and keeping in the background their unfeigned and flattering joy over the whole arrangement. It made matters so delightfully easy all round to have Imogen engaged to Dorry, and it was so much to their own individual advantage to exchange her for Johnnie that they really dared not express their delight too openly.
The great question with all was how papa would take the announcement, and whether he could be induced to carry out his half promise of leaving Burnet and coming to live with them in the Valley. They waited anxiously for his reply to the letters. It came by telegraph two days before they had dared to hope for it, and was as follows:--
G.o.d bless you all four! Genesis xliii. 14.
P. CARR.
This Biblical addition nearly broke John's heart. Her sisters had to comfort her with all manner of hopeful auguries and promises.
”He'll be glad enough over it in time,” they told her. ”Think what it would have been if you had been going to marry a Californian, or a man with an orange plantation in Florida. He'll see that it's all for the best as soon as he gets out here, and he _must_ come. Johnnie, you must never let him off. Don't take 'no' for an answer. It is so important to us all that he should consent.”
They primed her with persuasive messages and arguments, and both Clover and Elsie wrote him a long letter on the subject. On the very eve of the departure came a second telegram. Telegrams were not every-day things in the High Valley, the nearest ”wire” being at the Ute Hotel five miles away; and the arrival of the messenger on horseback created a momentary panic.