I broached the matter to Jim, and he was as keen as mustard on an early marriage. It was arranged that the cottage by the mill should be the home of Miriam and myself; that Ruth and Jim should start housekeeping with Mary in Wrigley Mill Fold.
“Aren’t you feared, Ruth,” asked Mary, “to set up wi’ a mother-i’-law?”
“Not with such a mother-in law as I know you’ll be, Mary.”
“Well, you take an old woman’s advice, Ruth; when you get wed, remember it may be ‘Bear and forebear.’ ”
“Aye, Jim will be th’ Bear and I’st be Forbear, I suppose.”
But Mary would not allow even my pert sister to call her idol, Jim, a bear—even in jest.
“Our Jim’s no bear, and never was. He’s got a soft heart in that big breast of his, as who should know better nor me. You can lead Jim with a thread o’ silk, but wild horses couldn’t drag him.”
“Well, I’ve no doubt Jim will be able to make Ruth do anything she likes,” I ventured to predict. And in so happy a mood were we that even that time- honoured joke raised a hearty laugh.
We had resolved to have a quiet double wedding. The tragic events in which we had all been concerned made us feel almost as though there had been a death in the family.
But we reckoned without Mr. and Mrs. Buckley. Miriam, as in duty bound, had written to her relations of Bent Hall, and that estimable couple insisted that, wherever the knot was tied, the wedding breakfast must be at their mansion.