"But I cannot understand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs. Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but still I can't understand it, from your point of view. Patty's theory is altogether untenable."
"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was giving him the money instead of his giving it to me—I wanted to be beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks—"
"O dear no!—I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded. Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was certainly a little huffy—for all these wonderful things had come to pass without her permission or assistance—but in her heart of hearts, as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances as her own mother could have been.
They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that "instrument" which Miss Yelverton's fiancé and cousin required her to sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits. The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career, by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that Providence had not given him children that he could have kept around him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones.
In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs. Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook, and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day. The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation with sobriety—a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in particular, had a very bracing air about her.
"Now I call this life," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding journey; "I call this really living. One feels as if one's faculties were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs. Duff-Scott—all things considered?"
"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."
"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest women on the face of the earth—or, if she isn't, she ought to be—with such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash one's teeth with envy."
"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as happy in the future as she is now."
"Oh, she will—she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to keep her from being too happy—too happy to last," said the girl audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."