“Not as I have set my heart on you, Ellen. Just a carriage, with you and your adorer in it, the white-silk dress a rustling around your lovely person, trimmed with flowers white. Well, yes, white, as bridal flowers ought to be.”
“What! Without bridemaids?—without witnesses?”
“My love, I have thought of that. There is my friend Boyce, a genteel fellow, in the grocery line, who has a sweetheart of his own, a Miss Gorman, splendid old Irish name; not to be compared with yours of course, but still respectable on a certificate, very.”
“Why, Mr. Mahone, you seem to have settled everything,” cried Ellen, half angry, half elated.
“Always under your wishes, being only your shadow and nothing more, Miss Ellen, and having, in fact, no will of my own, nor wanting any.”
“So private! So soon! I really don’t know what to say, Mr. Mahone.”
“Let me say it for you, dearest of women; let me take this modest hesitation for yes. May I—may I?”
“Mr. Mahone, you may.”
A moment after this consent was given, the betrothed pair stole from the laundry, Mahone first and Miss Post after. She passed the cook with a lofty fling of the head, and apologized with mock humility for her presence in a place so far out of her usual element as a kitchen, at which the cook said “Scat,” which certainly did seem a little out of place, as no cat, black or white, was disturbing the tranquillity of the room.
Not ten minutes after this the washerwoman came out of the laundry with her bonnet and shawl on, white as a ghost, but with undaunted fire in her eyes. In fact the poor drudge looked full of life, and almost handsome; a very different woman from the jaded and hopeless creature who had crept into the house with such humility only a few hours before.