And now what remains to be told? But little, I think! For my gentle Mona has reached that haven where she would be!
Violet and Dorothy are to be married next month, both on the same day, at the same hour, in the same church,—St. George's Hanover Square, without telling. From old Lord Steyne's house in Mayfair, by Dorothy's special desire, both marriages are to take place, Violet's father being somewhat erratic in his tastes, and in fact at this moment wandering aimlessly among the Himalayas.
Mona is happier than words can say. She is up to her eyes in the business, that business sweetest to a woman's soul, the ordering and directing and general management of a trousseau. In her case she is doubly blessed, because she has the supervizing of two!
Her sympathy is unbounded, her temper equal to the most trying occasion, her heart open to the most petty grievances; she is to the two girls an unfailing source of comfort, a refuge where they may unrebuked pour out the indignation against their dressmakers that seems to rage unceasingly within their breasts.
Indeed, as Dorothy says one day, out of the plenitude of her heart, "How we should possibly have got on without you, Mona, I shudder to contemplate."
Geoffrey happening to be present when this flattering remark is made, Violet turns to him and says impulsively,—
"Oh, Geoffrey, wasn't it well you went to Ireland and met Mona? Because if you had stayed on here last autumn we might have been induced to marry each other, and then what would have become of poor Jack?"
"What, indeed?" says Geoffrey, tragically. "Worse still, what would have become of poor Mona?"
"What is it you would say?" exclaims Mona, threatingly, turning towards him a lovely face she vainly tries to clothe with anger.
"It is insupportable such an insinuation," says the lively Doatie. "Violet, Mona's cause is ours: what shall we do with him?"