Chapter 25

On the night of the auspicious occasion, Mrs. Jenkins's home presented a scene of festivity. Neighbors had loaned their lamps, and the brakeman had hung out his red lantern in token of welcome and cheer. It was, however, mistaken by some of the guests as a signal of danger, and they were wary of their steps lest they be ditched. Mrs. Hudgers ventured the awful prognostication that "mebby some of them Jenkins brats had gone and got another of them ketchin' diseases."

When they entered the house there was a general exclamation of admiration. The curtain partitions had been removed, and the big room was beautifully decorated with festoons and masses of green interspersed with huge bunches of June roses.

Derry and Flamingus received the guests. Upstairs the Boarder and the brakeman were nervously awaiting the crucial moment. The door into the Annex was closed, for in the sitting-room was the little bride, her pale cheeks delicately tinted from excitement as Colette artistically adjusted the bridal veil, fastening it with real orange blossoms. Amarilly hovered near in an ecstasy which was perforce silent on account of her mouth being full of pins.

"There's Mr. St. John's carriage," she managed to murmur as she peered from the window.

Colette dropped her paper of pins, went hastily into the adjoining bedroom and slipped out again before John Meredith was ushered in where the surplice immaculately laundered, was waiting to be donned by its original owner.

After slipping it on, John's hand from force of habit sought the pocket and there encountered something. He drew it forth wonderingly. It was a small, silver-monogrammed envelope sealed and addressed to him in Colette's handwriting. He read the note once, twice, thrice. Then there was a knock at the door that led into the Annex sitting-room. He opened it to admit Amarilly.

"Are you ready?" she asked. "You're to go in with them. They--"

She paused and stared at him. The transformation in his face was wonderful.

"Yes, I am ready, Amarilly," he replied, and something in his voice sounded strange to her.

He followed her into the next room where the Boarder, awkward in his Sunday clothes, but regal in his pride in the little, white-veiled figure at his side, was awaiting him.

John walked out into the Jenkins's part of the house with them, while Amarilly slipped home by way of the Annex bedroom.

The entrance was certainly effective to the neighbors.

"Ain't she a lily though!" "Look at that long veil onct!" "Jest like 'a picter!" "What a swell waist" "That big bo'quet!" "I niver seed sech flowers afore." "That surplus makes it look like picters!"

All these comments were sweet music in Amarilly's ear. Only one person had regrets. Mrs. Hudgers was visibly disappointed.

"I thought they'd hev candles a-burnin'," she confided to Mrs. Huce.

"Don't you know no better than that?" scoffed Mrs. Huce with a superior air. "Them things is only used by Irish folks."

Derry's dancing eyes looked to Colette for appreciation of this statement, but her eyes and attention were entirely for John.

The ceremony began. John's impressive voice, with its new pervading note of exultant gladness, reached them all, tempering even Derry's light- hearted mirth. It gave courage to the little bride whose drooping head rose like a flower, and a light shone in her eyes as she made the responses sweetly and clearly. It found echo in the Boarder, whose stooping shoulders unconsciously straightened and his voice grew clear and strong as he promised to have and to hold. It found a place in Colette's heart which sent illumining lights into her starry eyes.

When the solemn ceremony ended, and the Boarder and Lilly Rose were pronounced man and wife, the guests flocked forward to offer congratulations. Then they were bidden to adjourn to the Annex that they might view the bride's domain, while Mrs. Jenkins assisted by many helping hands set the long tables, a small one being reserved for the Boarder, the bride, Mr. Cotter, and Mrs. Jenkins and Iry.

"I thought they could eat more natural," whispered the considerate little Amarilly to Colette, "if there weren't no strangers with them."

Colette, John, and Derry were also honored with a separate table. Mrs. Hudgers and Amarilly "dished up and poured" in the woodshed, while the boys acted as waiters, having been thoroughly trained by Amarilly for the occasion.

"Do you know," laughed Derry, "I was so surprised and relieved to find that the Boarder had a cognomen like other people. It never occurred to me before that he must of course have a name."

Colette smiled politely but perfunctorily. She was living too deeply to-night to appreciate wit. John, too, was strangely silent, his eyes resting often and adoringly upon Colette. Shrewdly Derry divined the situation and relieved it by rattling on with a surface banter that demanded no response.

"These refreshments," he observed, "are certainly the handiwork of my little maid. They have a flavor all her own. I am proud of Amarilly's English, too."

"I wonder," said Colette, "if you are doing quite right, Mr. Phillips, in improving Amarilly to such an extent? I am afraid she will grow beyond her family."

"No; even you, pardon me, Miss King, don't know Amarilly as I do. She couldn't get beyond them in her heart, although she may in other directions. Her heart is in the right place, and it will bridge any distance that may lie between them."

John looked up attentively and approvingly.

"Amarilly has too much aptitude for learning not to be encouraged, and I shall do more for her before long. We have pursued a select course of reading this winter. She has read aloud while I painted. We began stumblingly with Alice in Wonderland and are now groping through mythology."

After refreshments had been served, Lily Rose went to her bedroom to don her travelling gown, and when the happy couple had driven away amid a shower of rice and shouts from the neighbors, John's carriage drew up.

"John," asked Colette, after a happy little moment in his arms, "did you read my note and did you see what the date was?"

"Colette, surely it was the dearest love-letter a man ever received. If I could have had it all these dreary months!"

"Do you wonder that I feared its falling into strange hands?"

"Tell me its history, Colette. How you recovered it, and why you thought it was in the surplice in the first place?"

"I wrote it the day after you asked me--you know--"

There was another happy disappearance and silence before she resumed:

"I was sentimental enough to want to deliver it in an unusual way. I took it to Mrs. Jenkins's house the day your surplice was to be returned to you, and I slipped it inside the pocket. I wanted you to find it there on Sunday morning. I didn't know what to think when you looked at me so oddly that Sunday--yes, I know now that you were wondering at my silence. And when we came home in the fall and I learned from Amarilly that strangers might be reading and laughing at my ardent love-letter, which must have passed through many and alien hands, I was so horrified I couldn't act rational or natural. I was--yes, I will 'fess up, John,-- I was unreasonable, as you said and--No, John! wait until I finish before you--"

"You want to know how and where it was found? It seems at the same time your surplice was laundered, a lace waist of mine was at their house. I didn't care for a 'fumigated waist' so, like you, I made Amarilly a present perforce. She laid it away in its wrappings to keep until her wedding day. Out of the goodness of her generous little heart she loaned it to Lily Rose and yesterday, when they were trying it on, Amarilly found my note in the sleeve. Mrs. Jenkins was appealed to and remembered that when the things were ready to be sent home, she found the note on the floor, and supposing it had fallen from the waist slipped it inside and forgot all about it. I decided that it should be delivered in the manner originally planned."

"But, Colette," he asked wistfully, a few moments later, "if you had never found it would you have kept me always in suspense and never have given me an answer? I began to hope, that night I called, that you were relenting."

"I was, John. Amarilly had been telling me of the Boarder's love for Lily Rose, and it made me lonely for you, and I determined in any event to give you your answer--this answer--to-night. And so I did, and--I think that is all, John."

"Not all, Colette."