Molly Brown's Orchard Home Part 21

"Ah, the blonde bride is so wonderful and so rare! I could create for Mademoiselle a dress that would be the talk of Paris. With that hair and such fairness of complexion--well, never mind, I will still make her as beautiful as the dawn." And so she did.

After the ceremony, a wedding breakfast followed at the home of the good Cousin Sally, who felt like weeping but refrained for fear of casting a cloud on Molly's day; but it was noticed that she was especially attentive and kind to poor emotional Polly, showing that she appreciated his feelings and longed to show hers.

Molly and Edwin went on their wedding trip to--But is it kind to follow them? Let them have their solitude _a deux_. They are well able to take care of each other without our a.s.sistance.

They joined Mrs. Brown in a month and went back to Kentucky with her, leaving Judy and Kent to continue their art studies in Paris.

Judy was terribly afraid that she would have to go back under Mrs.

Pace's wing when the Browns left her, but the all-capable Marchioness d'Ochte got her a room at the American Girls' Club where she could be as free as she wished with the appearance of being well chaperoned. As for Kent he struck up quite a friendship with Pierce Kinsella, whom he had once so feared as a rival, and the two young men decided to share a studio, lessening the expense for both and heightening their pleasure.

CHAPTER XX.

MORE LETTERS.

From Mrs. Edwin Green to Miss Nance Oldham.

My dearest Nance:

Oh, Nance, I'm so happy! I wonder if any two people were ever so happy as Edwin and I. Am I not glib with my "Edwin"? I found it rather hard at first to keep from calling him Professor Green, but it seemed to mean so much to him that I have at last broken myself of the habit.

I longed for you on the day of the wedding. It did not seem right for me to take such a step without my darling Nance to help me. I was married in a traveling suit. I really believe I could not have been married in a white dress and veil unless you had been there to put on my veil.

We are having a wonderful trip, and (please don't laugh at me), but do you know it is a real privilege to travel with a man like Edwin?

He knows so many things without being the least bit teachy. Mother says you are never conscious of the pedagogue in Edwin. That is really so, which I think is remarkable, considering the many persons he has to teach.

First we went to Scotland. Nothing in France thrilled me as did the lakes of Scotland. How thankful I am that, as a child, I did not have access to very many books, only the cla.s.sics, and I had to read the Waverley Novels or nothing. Scotland meant a great deal more to me because of my having read Scott. Edwin says he finds about one out of ten of the young persons of the day know their d.i.c.kens and their Scott.

Edinburgh is so interesting that already Edwin and I are planning to revisit it in his next Sabbatical year. That is a long way off but we are so happy those seven years will pa.s.s quickly, I know. I almost fell over the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle trying to see the exact spot where Robert Louis Stevenson's hero, St. Ives, went down on the rope to the rocks below. As I craned my neck, Edwin whispered hoa.r.s.ely in my ear: "Past yin o'cloak, and a dark, haary moarnin."

Edwin says I take fiction much more seriously than I do history. He does, too, unless the history happens to be Mary Queen of Scots or something that by rights should have been fiction. Greyfriars Bobby, for instance, is a true tale but affects us both as though it were fiction. We gave a whole afternoon to that dear little doggy, following in his footsteps as nearly as we could through the streets of Edinburgh, and out into the country by the road he took to the farm, and then back to Greyfriars Churchyard where the old shepherd, his master, was buried.

Of course we did the Burns country thoroughly. Edwin seemed as at home there as I am in the beech woods at Chatsworth. Burns has never been one of my poets, but he is now. I have adopted him for life since I realize what he means to Edwin.

We are in London now and could spend a year here and not see all we want to see. We play a splendid game which maybe you will think is silly, but you don't know how much fun it is. We pretend for a whole day to be some characters in fiction, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, Barrie, anyone we happen to think of, and then we do the things those persons might have done. For instance, when we were slumming, I was the Marchioness and Edwin was d.i.c.k Swiveller. That was perhaps the best day of all. When we went down to the Thames embankment, Edwin suddenly turned into Rogue Riderhood and I was Lizzie Hexam.

Edwin did not think much of me as Becky Sharp when we went to the Opera nor did I think his Rawdon Crawley very convincing. His Peter Pan was splendid the afternoon we spent in Kensington Gardens, and he thought my Wendy was so perfect he tried to make me give him a "thimble" right there before all the nurse maids.

We are going home in a few days now. We are to meet Mother at Liverpool and sail from there. I do wish Mother could have done the things we have done. She would have enjoyed it so much. She laughed until she cried when I proposed her going with us. She said she loved Edwin too much and felt that he loved her too much to put his affection to such a test.

One of the very best things about being Mrs. Edwin Green is that Mother so highly approves of Edwin.

In a few weeks now we will be settled in our little Orchard Home. I hate to leave London but I long for the little home. I am a born homemaker and I am eager to get to housekeeping in the bungalow.

Edwin expects to be very busy working on a text-book on American Literature that he feels there is a need of. He does not have to go back to Wellington until January and that will give us time for lots of things in Kentucky.

When we get to Wellington, you are the first person we want to have visit us, and I want to engage you right now.

What you tell me of Andy McLean's success at Harvard does not astonish me. I was sure he would do well. I shall not be astonished either when you tell me some other news about Andy. Come on now, Nance, and 'fess up.

Good-bye.--Edwin sends his kindest regards to you and says he, too, is counting on that visit from you in January.

Yours always,

MOLLY.

Mrs. Sarah Carmichael Clay to Mrs. Mildred Carmichael Brown.

Dear Milly:

For a woman who is noted through the whole County as being the least practical person in the world, the most gullible and credulous, you certainly seem to come out at the big end of the horn.

You have managed to marry off your daughters very young, though in my opinion they are none of them beauties. Your sons seem to be able to support themselves. You have contrived to sell your birthright to an oil trust and to lift the mortgage on Chatsworth.

Your servants stay with you until they die on your hands; and your friends vie with each other in rendering service to you.

I can't understand it. You must be deeper than shows on the surface. Anyhow, I take off my hat to you as being much more of a personage than I ever gave you credit for.

I am going to give Molly, for a wedding present, the portrait of our grandmother by Jouett. It is a valuable painting, so I am told, but I have had it in the attic for years as I could not bear the sight of it. You will remember it was the image of that impertinent Sally Bolling, who seemed to have the faculty of making me appear ridiculous. I never could abide her and hardly wanted to have her picture in my drawing room. I always lost sight of the fact that it was really our grandmother. I am afraid Molly is going to look like it, too.

It is high time you were coming home. Now that you have managed to marry Molly off, I should think you would have some feeling for me.

My health is very poor, and certainly your duty is to look after me some and not give all of your time to your children. What with the lawsuit that I have been forced into and the constant changing of house-servants, I am in a very nervous condition.

Affectionately your sister,

SARAH CARMICHAEL CLAY.

From Professor Edwin Green to Dr. McLean at Wellington.

My dear Doctor:

I have come to the conclusion that you can take a place by the side of Dr. Weir Mitch.e.l.l as one of the greatest nerve specialists of this age or any age. I am taking your prescription in large doses: deep full breaths of happiness and great br.i.m.m.i.n.g bowls of it. I am feeling fine and my wife says I am getting fat.

We have had a splendid trip. I have been over the same ground before, but it all seems new and wonderful to me. My wife's knowledge of your beloved Scotland put me to shame. She declares she got it all from Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson and never studied a history of the country in her life.

My wife joins me in love to you and Mrs. McLean. She says that one of her chief pleasures is looking forward to having Mrs. McLean for a neighbor the rest of her life.

We will be back in Wellington after Christmas. We are now going to my wife's native state, Kentucky, where I expect to finish the text-book on American Literature that I have been pretending to work on for some time. My wife's presence will serve as inspiration to me and I hope to get ahead with it now.

Very sincerely,

EDWIN GREEN.