“David! but we had better wait. We had better think it over,” she managed to say. “You had better—you're the dominie—I—”
“Don't you care for met” he asked.
She put her hand on his and David clasped it. Kisses 'and embraces usually help carry off a moment that can hardly be anything but awkward, but kisses and embraces are distinctly impossible across a dominie's manse gate in full day, with the Mannings on their porch across the street. 'Thusia laughed a mischievous little laugh.
“What!” David asked.
“I'll be the funniest wife for a dominie!” she said. “Oh, David, do you think I'll do!”
And so, as the fairy tales say, they were married. Fairy tales properly end so, with a brief “and lived happily ever after,” and so may most tales of real life end, but, however the minister's life may run, a minister's wife is apt to find the married years sufficiently interesting. She marries not only a husband but an official position, and the latter is quite apt to lead to plentiful situations.
Mary Wiggett, calling David back too late, did not fall into a decline or die for love. Not until she lost David finally did she realize how deeply she had loved him, but she did not sulk or repine. She even served as a bridesmaid for 'Thusia, and with 'Thusia planned the wedding gown. She almost took the place of a mother, and advised and worked to make 'Thusia's trousseau beautiful. She seemed to wish David's bride to be all she herself would have been had she been David's bride. 'Thusia was too happy to think or care why Mary showed such interest, and David, who could not avoid hearing of it, was pleased and grateful.
The crowning act of Mary's kindness was asking 'Thusia to call Rose Hinch from her poverty to help with the plainer sewing. The three girls spent many days together at the Fraggs' and, although David was mentioned as seldom as ever a bridegroom was mentioned, all three felt they were laboring for him in making his bride fine. Mary, with her calm efficiency, seemed years older than 'Thusia, and thus the three worked—and were to work together for many years—for love of David.