“We shall find a nest.”
“What faith! You will find a nest! Go, then, and buy the rings, and get your wedding suits, and speak to the Dominie, and look to Providence for a roof to cover you. You may say ‘good night’ now, Harry. Lovers never know the clock. They come too soon, and they go too late, and they talk about months when they mean ten or eleven days. Good night, sir!”
But as it is ordained that lovers, like other men, have only feet and hands, and not wings, Harry could not accomplish his marriage as soon as he desired. There was law, as well as love, to consult; there were also milliners and dressmakers to wait upon, and domestic and financial matters to consider; so that it was the middle of June before the wedding day arrived. It might have been still later, had not Miss Alida suddenly resolved to spend the summer in Europe. This resolve left her handsome house vacant, and she said 189 frankly to Harry that “it would be a great kindness to her if he would borrow it for his summer residence.” Nothing could have been more delightful, and it simplified other considerations at once, and gave to the bride and bridegroom an idyllic retreat for a long honeymoon.
“I said there would be a nest found for us!” cried Harry joyfully; and Miss Alida laughingly answered “that she had been driven from house and home, and sent to wander over the face of the earth, in order to find them a nest.” But, in reality, the arrangement was convenient and pleasant on both sides.
The wedding day was one of royal sunshine, and the little church was crowded with sympathetic neighbors and acquaintances. People generally forget to be envious and ill-natured at a wedding, for the very presence of visible love seems to hold in abeyance evil thoughts and feelings. So, when Adriana, in a brave white satin dress, slashed with sunshine, walked up the aisle on her father’s arm, and Harry followed with Miss Alida on his arm, there was a murmur of admiration and good will. The bride was so lovely and the bridegroom so handsome, and both were so radiantly happy, that every one present caught joy from them.
Through the open windows came the scent of lilacs and the twitter of birds, and the old pines, like mystical trees, waved to and fro in the open spaces. The breath and the hope of the morning hours were yet in the air; the minister’s smiling face and strong, cheerful words, went to the heart like wine; and an air of religious joy sanctified the rite. Blessed even to tears, the new husband and wife turned to each other, and then to the world, with hopes bright as the morning and purposes holy as their vows.
There was a large wedding breakfast at Miss Alida’s, and then she had but just time to catch the train which would serve her steamer; and after her departure, one by one the visitors went away; so that, before sunset, Harry and Adriana were alone in their new home. Only one thing had marred the pleasure of the day; Harry’s parents had refused to share it. Mr. Filmer had no special dislike to Adriana, but his wife had; and Mr. Filmer wisely considered that his summer’s comfort and peace probably depended on his apparent sympathy. And with his great book on hand, how could he face the prospect of a prolonged disagreement on a subject so much beyond his control?
So he was investigating the Plantagenet influence on the social life of England while his son was being married, and he quite forgot all about the circumstance. But Mrs. Filmer was fretting in every room of her fine house, and feeling the ceremony in every nerve of her body and pulse of her heart. Her restlessness indeed became so great that she drove through the village in the afternoon, determined to be very gracious to any one who could talk to her on the subject. She met no one who could do so; though, for some time, society in Woodsome divided itself very broadly into Mrs. Henry Filmer’s friends and Mrs. Harry Filmer’s friends.
Anyway, the Filmers, old and young, kept the village folk and the summer residents in delightful gossip and partisanship; for when a lady was tired of one side, or considered herself slighted by one side, she easily turned to the other; and thus, and so, the Filmer controversy lived on through the season. At the close of it, the old Filmers were in the ascendant. Mrs. Henry had given many fine entertainments, and people 191 liked them, for each fresh invitation contained the possibility of being a reconciliation party; and each failure of this hope renewed the life of the old grievance and the interesting discussion of it.