Part 7

We are home again, and all is bustle and confusion--Aunt Gwendolin is going to be married. She pays no attention to me now at all; and you know, dear diary, how that grieves me. Dressmakers, milliners, caterers, florists, decorators, throng the house. Count de Pensier is staying in a hotel downtown. He calls every forenoon, and every afternoon; and declares, with his hand on his heart, that he cannot return to his own country without his bride.

Cousin Ned has asked me to marry him. He is down in his luck, and blue--missed in his examinations--and he says he believes he might settle down and do something if he were only married. He says the relationship is so far out that there is nothing to hinder him and me from being married.

Get married, indeed! There's nothing farther from my thoughts.

_May 25th, 1----_

Well the fuss and flurry are all over--they are married, Aunt Gwendolin and Count de Pensier. I cannot do better than copy a paragraph out of the newspaper to describe the doings:

"The church was beautifully decorated with azaleas, palms, orchids; tall white wands supporting sheaves of palms stood at each aisle. The walls of the church were festooned with green wreathing. The bride was given away by her brother, Theodore Morgan, Esq. She looked exceedingly handsome in an exquisite gown of heavy, ivory-white satin, with panel of filet lace, seeded with pearls. The long train was trimmed with lace and pearl seeding. With this was worn a costly lace veil, caught to her Titian hair with a chaplet of orange blossoms, and she carried a shower bouquet of Bridal roses.

"The six bridesmaids were gowned in ivory taffeta silk, wearing picture hats; and each carried an immense bouquet of Bride's-maid's roses."

As is usual at American functions, the men did not seem to be of enough importance to mention anything more than their bare names.

It all took place in _Christ's_ Church. Was He there? Grandmother says He is back in this world now in spirit. What did He think of it all?

"Grandmother," I said when it was all over--the church display, the reception, the eating and drinking, the dressing--"if I am ever married let it be in China."

"My dear child," said grandmother in alarm, "why do you make such a wild request as that?"

"Seated at a table the bride is offered a tiny cup of wine," I replied, "of which she takes a sip, while the bridegroom in a seat opposite her also sips from a similar cup of wine. The cups are then exchanged, and again tasted, and the marriage service is completed. They have time to think about each other, instead of thinking of what a grand show they are making for the world."

Grandmother looked at me in silence a few moments, then she said:

"Your grandfather and I were married quietly in our own little home parlour. I was dressed in white muslin, and your grandfather in corduroy. We were thinking more about each other than anything else, my dear."

The bride and groom, Count and Countess de Pensier, started at once for the ancestral home in sunny France, I suppose to begin regilding the tarnished title Uncle Theodore spoke about.

Oh, be joyful! I shall not have to go to the "Fashionable Boarding School" any more! I shall not have to appear at a "coming out party!" I shall never come _out_ now; I shall always stay _in_! Grandmother says I may stay in if I want to, and I _do_ want to. I shall never have to steal out the back door in grandmother's clothes any more, sing any more foreign songs, or pretend I am Spanish! It is lovely to be able to act the truth! "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good." (This last is one of grandmother's familiar sayings.)

Cousin Ned has lost one of his eyes! Got it knocked out at the last "Play."

_May 30th, 1----_

I have made a most astounding discovery. Walking down the street yesterday I saw a great placard on a wall announcing a lecture; subject, "_The Yellow Peril_." What did it mean? I thought _I_ was the Yellow Pearl, and that nobody outside of the family knew it. But this was spelled p-e-r-i-l instead of P-e-a-r-l. What could it mean? I could go no farther, but returned at once to question grandmother.

"Grandmother!" I cried, entering her room, "what is the yellow peril?"

Dear grandmother's cheeks flushed, and she said, "My dear child, why bother yourself about that?"

"Why, grandmother, I thought when I overheard Aunt Gwendolin talk, that _I_ was the Yellow Pearl; she called me such the first day I came," I said. "But on the placard it is spelled p-e-r-i-l. What does it mean?"

"I am sorry you saw it," said grandmother hesitatingly. "There is too much being said on that subject by a certain class of people--It is the _world_ God loves," she added as if talking to herself, "not the United States, Great Britain, Germany; the yellow people are just as dear to God as we are. The gentle Christ looked widely over the world, shed tears for it, shed blood for it."

"What does the yellow peril mean, grandmother?" I repeated anxiously.

"The Mongolian races are more yellow than the Caucasian races," said grandmother, when forced to answer. "They are also more numerous, and some people fear that if we allow them in the country they may get the upper hand, and become a menace to our people. Do not think any more about it, Pearl. Our dear late Phillips Brooks," she added after a short pause, "said, 'No nation, as no man, has a right to take possession of a choice bit of God's earth, to exclude the foreigner from its territory, that it may live more comfortably and be a little more at peace. But if this particular nation has been given the development of a certain part of God's earth for universal purposes, if the world in the great march of centuries is going to be richer for the development of a certain national character, built up by a larger type of manhood here, then for the world's sake, for the sake of every nation that would pour in upon it that which would disturb that development, we have a right to stand guard over it.'"

This was a long speech for dear grandmother, who is not given to speechifying, and I know the subject must have given her serious thought, or she would never have remembered it.

"Is America being built up by a larger type of manhood, grandmother?" I asked.

"Oh, my dear, I do not know, I do not know," returned grandmother.

I stopped talking to grandmother, because she looked worried, but I could not stop _thinking_, I am both the Yellow Pearl, and the yellow peril! Why am I here? What were four hundred millions of us born into the world for? Is yellow badness any worse than white badness?

_June 20th, 1----_

What a heavenly time we are having, grandmother, Uncle Theodore, and myself, living our nice, quiet lives without distraction! Sometimes we have Professor Ballington in to dinner, then he drops in evenings quite often when he is not formally invited. Other old friends come too, enough to break the monotony.

Chauffeur Graham was obliged to leave grandmother's employ some time ago; indeed he has never come back since we returned from Mexico. He says it is his last term in the Medical College, and he has to give all the time to his studies. It would be nicer if he were around. I do not seem to care about going out in the automobile now at all.--How is one to know whether this new chauffeur may not run the automobile into a telegraph pole, or something, and kill us all?

_June 13th, 1----_

Chauffeur Graham has graduated. He is now Doctor Graham. Isn't that lovely! Just like a story book! Uncle Theodore and I went up to see him take his degree. My! wasn't he fine looking! Tall, beautiful figure, and, as I said before, a handsome face. Uncle Theodore is quite interested in him, as well as grandmother.

On the evening of the day on which he received his degree, he overtook me as I was walking through the park, and told me that he had noticed me in the audience.

He says he is going to put in a year's practice in the hospital before going to China. I was glad to hear that; it would seem rather lonesome in this big America without him, I really believe.

Poor Cousin Ned is standing behind a counter downtown, selling tacks and shingle nails. He had to give up his studies on account of his eyes--the one eye could not stand the strain. Unluckily about that time his father lost his money in some speculation, and there was nothing for it but poor Ned must go to work.

_Another June._

I have been so happy, and life has been so satisfactory that I have not written in my diary for many months. I believe it is only when one's heart is so sorrowful and distracted that it must overflow somewhere, that one pours it into a diary. I have so much to say now that I scarcely know where to begin.

Well, to begin at the beginning, one night Uncle Theodore asked Doctor Graham to dinner, along with Professor Ballington, and another gentleman. After that Doctor Graham began to call quite frequently evenings--he seemed to enjoy grandmother's company so much, and I am sure she enjoyed his.

Well--Oh, I never can tell how it all came about, but I have promised to go to China with Dr. Graham, to help him learn the Chinese language. It is an _awful_ language for a foreigner to learn, and I just could not bear the thought of the poor fellow having to wrestle with it alone.

It was one evening we were alone in the drawing-room, grandmother having been unable to appear owing to a headache, that we came to the final arrangement.

But suddenly I thought of something that was going to upset it all, I believed,--he didn't know who I was!

"Oh!" I cried, "I cannot go with you--you will not want me--you do not know--that--I--am the Yellow Peril!"

He smiled down at me, and raised my chin in the palm of his left hand--for he had not let me go from his right, although I had tried to get away--and said, "I expect to be very proud of my Yellow Pearl."

Now I am receiving congratulations which are making me feel very happy and proud, with the exception of Professor Ballington's. I cannot help feeling sorry for that poor old bachelor. He came up to me and said:

"My dear Miss Pearl, I had been vain enough to hope once that I might sometime call this pearl mine, but if I cannot do so, I do not know of any one that I would sooner see claim it than Doctor Graham. And so I say, God bless you! God bless you! You shall always have the love of an old bachelor. And in this world, obsessed with fever and noise, with the sham and superficial, may you always remain the genuine pearl you are."

There were tears in his voice. Why must every rose have a thorn?

We are going to China, Doctor Graham and I, my native land; the land of flashing poppy-blossoms, red azaleas, purple wistarias, blue larkspur, yellow jasmine, oleanders, begonias, and flowering bamboos--the Flowery Kingdom. Dr. Graham is going to establish a hospital, to set broken legs and bind up broken heads; and I am going to try and prevent any more of those little Chinese babies from being thrown out on the hillsides to die.

Grandmother says if we go to China it ought to be to tell the Confucionists and Buddhists about the great Christ. But I believe if He went there Himself He would be mending broken legs, binding up broken heads and hearts, and saving the little babies from being thrown out on the hillsides to die. Dear grandmother is a standing proof to me that the Christ means much more to the world than China's Confucius or Buddha. One day when she was seated in her rocking-chair I threw my arm around her and told her so. The dear old lady never seemed to accept my words as a personal compliment at all, but began, as once before, to sing in a low, quavering voice:

"Let every kindred every tribe On this terrestrial ball, To Him all majesty ascribe, And crown Him Lord of all."