Part 61 (1/2)
”John, you should have asked Mrs. March, too.”
”I forgot the etiquette of it. I forgot she was your pastor's wife. But it's too late now.”
”Prue!” Miss Prudence laid her hand on Prue's head to keep her quiet.
”Ask Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo and Deborah to come into the parlor.”
”We are to be married, Prue!” said John Holmes.
”_Who_ is?” asked Prue.
”Aunt Prue and I. Don't you want papa and mamma instead of Uncle John and Aunt Prue?”
”Yes; I do! Wait for us to come. I'll run and tell them,” she answered, fleeing away.
”John, this is a very irregular proceeding!”
”It quite befits the occasion, however,” he answered gravely. Very slowly they walked toward the house.
All color had left Miss Prudence's cheeks and lips. Deborah was sure she would faint; but Mrs. Kemlo watched her lips, and knew by the firm lines that she would not.
No one thought about the bridegroom, because no one ever does. Prue kept close to Miss Prudence, and said afterward that she was mamma's bridesmaid. Marjorie thought that Morris would be glad if he could know it; he had loved Mr. Holmes.
The few words were solemnly spoken.
Prudence Pomeroy and John Holmes were husband and wife.
”What G.o.d hath joined--”
Oh, how G.o.d had joined them. She had belonged to him so long.
The bridegroom and bride went on their wedding tour by walking up and down the long parlor in the summer twilight. Not many words were spoken.
Deborah went out to the dining-room to change the table cloth for one of the best damasks, saying to herself, ”It's just as it ought to be! Just as it ought to be! And things do happen so once in a while in this crooked world.”
XXV.
THE WILL OF G.o.d.
”To see in all things good and fair, Thy love attested is my prayer.”--_Alice Cary._
”Linnet is happy enough,” said their mother; ”but there's Marjorie!”
Yes; there was Marjorie! She was not happy enough. She was twenty-one this summer, and not many events had stirred her uneventful life since we left her the night of Miss Prudence's marriage. She came home the next day bringing Mrs. Kemlo with her, and the same day she began to take the old household steps. She had been away but a year, and had not fallen out of the old ways as Linnet had in her three years of study; and she had not come home to be married as Linnet had; she came home to do the next thing, and the next thing had even been something for her father and mother, or Morris' mother.
Annie Grey went immediately, upon the homecoming of the daughter of the house, to Middlefield to learn dressmaking, boarding with Linnet and ”working her board.” Linnet was lonely at night; she began to feel lonely as dusk came on; and the arrangement of board for one and pleasant companions.h.i.+p for the other, was satisfactory to both. Not that there was very much for Annie to do, beside staying at home Monday mornings to help with the was.h.i.+ng, and ironing Monday evening or early Tuesday. Linnet loved her housekeeping too well to let any other fingers intermeddle.
Will decided that she must stay, for company, especially through the winter nights, if he had to pay her board.
Therefore Marjorie took the place that she left vacant in the farmhouse, and more than filled it, but she did not love housekeeping for its own comfortable sake, as Linnet did; she did it as ”by G.o.d's law.”