It was a very quiet wedding with a few friends and a supper. At nine o'clock the new wife went to Sudbury Street. Mrs. Gilman had some rather strict ideas, and declared it was no time for frolicking when war was at our very door, and no one knew what might happen, and hundreds of families were in pinching want.
Mercy was up the next morning betimes and assisted her new mother with the breakfast. Warren went down to his shop. But they had quite an elaborate tea drinking at the Leveretts', and some songs and games in the evening. Mercy did enjoy the wider life.
Mrs. Manning had come in for the wedding and a few days' stay, though she didn't see how she could be spared just now, and things would get dreadfully behindhand. Mrs. King was to go home with her and make a little visit. Bessy thought she would rather stay with Doris, and she was captivated with the Royall House and Eudora. The children never seemed in the way of the grown people there, and if elderly men talked politics and city improvements,—quite visionary, some thought them,—the young people with Alice and Helen had the garden walks and the wide porch, and discussed the enjoyments of the time with the zest of enthusiastic inexperience but keen delight.
CHAPTER XXI
ELIZABETH AND—PEACE
Mrs. King brought back Elizabeth Manning, a pale, slim ghost of a girl, tall for her age—indeed, really grown up, her mother said. Of the three girls Bessy King had the most indications of the traditional country girl. A fine clear skin, pink cheeks and a plump figure, and an inexhausible flow of spirits, ready for any fun or frolic.
Doris was always well, but she had the Adams complexion, which was rather pale, with color when she was warm, or enthusiastic or indignant. The pink came and went like a swift summer cloud.
"I do declare," exclaimed Aunt Priscilla, "if 'Lecty King doesn't beat all about getting what she wants, and making other people believe they want it, too! Warren might as well have been married in the winter, and Mercy would have been company for Betty. She never liked to run out and leave me alone. Mercy seems a nice, promising body, and Warren might as well be happy and settled as not. And 'Lecty's been to Washington and dined with the President and Mrs. Madison, and I'll venture to say there was something the President's wife consulted her about. And all the big captains and generals, and what not! And here's the quality of Boston running after her and asking her out just as if we had nothing to feed her on at home. She don't do anything, fursisee, but just look smiling and talk. But my opinion is that Elizabeth Manning hasn't a very long journey to the graveyard. I don't see what Mary's been thinking about."
Mrs. King took her niece to Dr. Jackson, one of the best medical authorities of that day, and he looked the young girl over with his keen eyes.