"Indeed, Pollie, I am far from thinking you that," I replied in some confusion. "I know that I owe a good deal to your keenness of perception, and you have shown yourself one of the best and truest of friends. I can't tell you how glad I am that this happiness has come to you."
"And I am just as glad that you are going to be happy," she said. "Isn't it wonderful how things come round? I calculate that the next happening will be a wedding at 'Gay Bowers.'"
"Pollie, what do you mean?"
"Just that. I guess there will be a wedding here before the end of the month. Miss Cottrell is a brick, Nan. She has made up her mind that she will never desert Mr. Micawber—in other words, she is just as ready to share poppa's poverty as she was to share his wealth, so I presume we'll travel to America as a family party, and Mr. Upsher will tie the knot in Greentree church before we leave."
Here was news indeed! Life at "Gay Bowers" was no longer monotonous. Its current had begun to move swiftly, and was destined to flow still more rapidly ere the summer was over.
Father and mother did not withhold their consent to my engagement. The following day brought them both to "Gay Bowers," to my great delight. I was not surprised, but it afforded me complete satisfaction to see that Alan had won mother's heart. She said she felt it hard that she must part with both her grown-up girls; but, as father had stipulated that I should not be married till I was twenty-one, she would not lose me for some time yet.
After this, our engagement was made public, and seemed to give every one pleasure. People said such kind things of me that I was quite ashamed to think how little they knew me.
Paulina's prediction came true, and we were soon busy preparing for her father's marriage with Miss Cottrell. It took place in our beautiful old church on the thirty-first of July. The happy pair spent a week at Felixstowe and then came back to "Gay Bowers" to fetch Pollie. It was with genuine regret that Aunt Patty and I watched Mr. and Mrs. Dicks and Paulina take their departure. How different were our feelings now from those with which we had received the Americans and Miss Cottrell! The paying guests had become our friends.
"Au revoir!" cried Pollie as they drove away. "We are coming back some day. And, Mr. Faulkner, please don't forget that you are going to bring Nan to Indianapolis some time."
We watched them pass out of our sight with the sadness most partings inevitably bring, for who could say whether we should all meet again?