“We shall break our word to the newly married,” said her husband. “Isn’t there a State law against that?”
“When we made that arrangement,” said his wife, going down the steps, “we did not know our individual selves; now we do, and the case is different. Kate will understand all that when I explain it to her.”
They drove back to the station, and took a train for home.
Mr. and Mrs. Bringhurst were sitting in the cool library about nine o’clock that evening; he was reading while she was listening, and they were greatly astonished when they heard a carriage drive up to the front door. During their domestic honey-moon they had received no visitors, and they looked at each other and wondered.
“It is a mistake,” said he; “but don’t trouble yourself. Mary has not gone to bed, and she will hear the bell.”
But there was no bell; the door was opened, and in came father and mother, followed by a strange young couple.
“It is wonderful!” exclaimed Kate, when at last everybody had been embraced or introduced. “A dozen times during the last week have we talked about the delight it would give us if our father and mother could be here to be entertained a little while as our guests in our own house—for you gave it to us for a month, you know. But we refrained from sending you an invitation because we did not want to cut off your holiday. And now you are here! The good fairies could not have arranged the matter better.”
When all the tales had been told; when the assertion of individuality and the plans of hermit association had been described and discussed, and the young Bringhursts had told how they, too, without knowing it, had been associate hermits, devoting their time not to the discovery of their own natures, but of the nature of each other, and how perfectly satisfied they had been with the results, it was very late, and young Clyde was not allowed to go out into the darkness to find a hotel.
It was on Thursday afternoon that Mrs. Dearborn arrived at the Archibalds’ house. The letter she had received had made her feel that she could not wait until the end of the congress.
“Now, mother,” said Margery, when the two were alone together, “you have seen him and you have talked to him, and Uncle Hector has told you how he went to the office of Glassborough & Clyde and found he was really their nephew, and all about him and his family; and you have been told precisely why it was necessary that we should engage ourselves so abruptly on account of the violent nature of Mr. Raybold and the trouble he might cause, not only to us, but to dear Aunt Harriet and Uncle Archibald. And now we come just like two of your own children and put the whole matter entirely into your hands and leave you to decide, out of your own heart, exactly when and where we shall be married, and all about it. Then, when father comes home, you can tell him just what you have decided to do. You are our parents, and we leave it to you.”