"There"s going to be time enough for Sally to be married properly,"
she decided.
That was all there was to it. It seems that tucked away up in the attic there was an old trunk and tucked away in that a wedding dress of white silk which had been worn by Sally"s mother.
"It"s been kept ag"in" this very day," explained Mrs. Halliday, "though I will say that I was beginnin" to git discouraged."
The dress was brought out, and no more auspicious omen could have been furnished Mrs. Halliday than the fact that, except in several unimportant details, Sally could have put it on and worn it, just as it was. Not only did it fit, but the intervening years had brought back into style again the very mode in which it had been designed, so that, had she gone to a Fifth Avenue dressmaker, she could have found nothing more in fashion. Thus it was possible to set the wedding date just four days off, for Sat.u.r.day. That was not one moment more of time than Mrs. Halliday needed in which to put the house in order--even with the hearty cooperation of Don, who insisted upon doing his part, which included the washing of all the upper windows.
Those were wonderful days for him. For one thing he discovered that not only had there been given into his keeping the clear-seeing, steady-nerved, level-headed woman who had filled so large a share of his life this last year, but also another, who at first startled him like some wood nymph leaping into his path. She was so young, so vibrant with life, so quick with her smiles and laughter--this other.
It was the girl in her, long suppressed, because in the life she had been leading in town there had been no playground. Her whole attention there had been given to the subjection of the wild impulses in which she now indulged. She laughed, she ran, she reveled in being just her care-free, girlish self. Don watched her with a new thrill. He felt as though she were taking him back to her early youth--as though she were filling up for him all those years of her he had missed.
At night, about the usual time he was dining in town, Mrs. Halliday insisted that Sally should go to bed, as she herself did, which, of course, left Don no alternative but to go himself. There was no possible object in his remaining up after Sally was out of sight. But the early morning belonged to her and to him. At dawn he rose and when he came downstairs, he found her waiting for him. Though Mrs. Halliday protested that Sally was losing her beauty sleep she was not able to produce any evidence to prove it. If any one could look any fresher or more wonderful than Sally, as she stepped out of the house by his side into the light of the newborn day, then there was no sense in it, because, as she was then, she filled his eyes and his heart to overflowing. She wore no hat, but except for this detail he was never conscious of how she was dressed. There was always too much to occupy him in her brown eyes, in her mouth, which, while losing nothing of its firmness, had acquired a new gentleness. He had always thought of her lips as cold, but he knew them better now. At the bend in the road where he had kissed her first, he kissed her again every morning. She always protested. That was instinctive. But in the end she submitted, because it always seemed so many hours since she had seen him last, and because she made him understand that not until the next day could he expect this privilege.
"What"s the use of being engaged if I can"t kiss you as often as I wish?" he demanded once.
"We"re engaged in order to be married," she explained.
"And after we are married--"
"You wait and see," she answered, her cheeks as red as any schoolgirl"s.
"But that"s three days off," he complained.
Even to her, happy as she was, confident as she was, the interval to Sat.u.r.day sometimes seemed like a very long s.p.a.ce of time. For one thing, she felt herself at night in the grip of a kind of foreboding absolutely foreign to her. Perhaps it was a natural reaction from the high tension of the day, but at night she sometimes found herself starting to her elbow in an agony of fear. Before the day came, something would happen to Don, because such happiness as this was not meant for her. She fell a victim to all manner of wild fears and extravagant fancies. On the second night there was a heavy thunderstorm. She did not mind such things ordinarily. The majesty of the darting light and the rolling crash of the thunder always thrilled her. But this evening the sky was blotted out utterly and quick light shot from every point of the compa.s.s at once. As peal followed peal, the house shook. Even then it was not of herself she thought. She had no fear except for Don. This might be the explanation of her foreboding. It happened, too, that his room was beneath the big chimney where if the house were hit the bolt would be most apt to strike. Dressing hastily in her wrapper and bedroom slippers, she stole into the hall. A particularly vicious flash illuminated the house for a second and then plunged it into darkness. She crept to Don"s very door. There she crouched, resolved that the same bolt should kill them both. There she remained, scarcely daring to breathe until the shower pa.s.sed.
It was a silly thing to do. When she came back to her own room, her cheeks were burning with shame. The next morning she was miserable in fear lest he discover her weakness. He did not, though he marveled at a new tenderness in her that had been born in the night.
The fourth day broke fair and Don found himself busy until noon helping with the decorations of green and of wild flowers; for though only a dozen or so neighbors had been asked, Mrs. Halliday was thorough in whatever she undertook. Had she been expecting a hundred she could have done no more in the way of preparation except perhaps to increase the quant.i.ty of cake and ices.
Don himself had asked no one except old Barton, of Barton & Saltonstall, and him he did not expect, although he had received no reply to his invitation. What, then, was his surprise when toward the middle of the forenoon, as he was going into the house with an armful of pine boughs, he heard a voice behind him,--
"How do, Don?"
Turning, he saw Barton in a frock coat and a tall hat that he might have worn last at Pendleton, Senior"s, wedding.
"For Heaven"s sake!" exclaimed Don, dropping his pine boughs on the doorstep and rushing to meet him. "I call this mighty good of you."
"I could hardly do less for Pendleton"s boy," answered Barton.
"Well, sir, you"re mighty welcome. Come right in. Oh, Sally," he called.
Sally came on the run, not knowing what had happened. She wore a calico ap.r.o.n and had not found time to do her hair since morning. It was not exactly the costume she would have chosen in which first to meet Mr. Barton. Her cheeks showed it.
"Sally," said Don, "this is Mr. Barton--my father"s lawyer. Mr.
Barton, this is Miss Winthrop."
Barton bowed low with old-fashioned courtesy. Then he allowed his keen gray eyes to rest a moment upon hers.
"I am very glad to meet you," he said.
"Will you come in?" she asked. "I"m afraid the house is very much in disorder just now, but I want you to meet my aunt."
Mrs. Halliday was scarcely more presentable than Miss Winthrop, but the latter found a certain relief in that fact.
"I"m glad to know you," Mrs. Halliday greeted him cordially.
But what to do with him at just this time was a problem which would have baffled her had he not solved it for himself.
"Please don"t let me interrupt the preparations," he begged. "I should not have ventured here--at just this time--except that I wanted to see Don about a few legal matters."
"Mr. Barton," explained Don to Sally, "is the man who had the pleasant duty thrust upon him of telling me that I was cut off without a cent."
"It was an unpleasant duty," nodded Barton, "but I hope it may be my good fortune to make up for that."
"I"m afraid the only place you can sit is on the front doorstep,"
laughed Sally.
"As good a place as any," answered Don, leading the way.
"Well," asked Don good-naturedly as soon as they were seated there, "what"s the trouble now? I tell you right off it"s got to be something mighty serious to jar me any at just this time."
"There was still another codicil to your father"s will," explained Barton at once--"a codicil I have not been at liberty to read to you until now. It had, in fact, no point except in the contingency of your marriage."
"I hope you aren"t going to take the house away from me," scowled Don.
"No," answered Barton slowly. "It has to do rather with an additional provision. The substance of it is that in case you married any one--er--meeting with my approval, you were to be given an allowance of two thousand a year."
"Eh?"
"Two thousand a year. After that, one thousand a year additional for each child born of that marriage until the total allowance amounts to five thousand dollars. At that point the princ.i.p.al itself is to be turned over to you."
"Oh, Sally!" called Don.
She came running again. It was still four hours before they would be safely married and many things might happen in four hours.
"Sit down here and listen to this," he commanded. "Now, do you mind saying that all over again?"
Barton repeated his statement.
"What do you think of that?" inquired Don. "It"s just as though I had my salary raised two thousand a year. Not only that--but the rest is up to you."
"Don!"
"Well, it is."
"And besides," she gasped, "Mr. Barton has not yet said he approves."
Mr. Barton arose.