Such a telegram! She sat back relieved, steadied her trembling lips, and smiled. Smiled, and read it over again. What a boy to make his bride come to the station to meet her two hours before the ceremony! What a girl to be willing to come!
Suddenly the tears came rushing to her eyes, glad tears mingled with smiles, and she felt enveloped in the love of her children. Her boy and her girl! Think of it! She would have a daughter! And she was a part of them; she was to be in the close home part of the ceremony, the beforehand and the sweet excitement. They were waiting for her and wanting her, and she was not just a necessary part of it all because she was the groom’s mother; she was to stay his mother, and be mother to the girl; and she would perhaps be a sister to the girl’s mother, who was now also to be her boy’s mother. Now for the first time the bitterness was taken out of that thought about Arthur’s having another mother, and she was able to see how they two mothers could love him together, if the other one should prove to be the right kind of mother. And it now began to seem as if she must be to have brought up a girl like Cornelia.
At that very moment in the little house on the hill four chattering college-girl bridesmaids attired in four becoming silk negligees were bunched together on Cornelia’s bed, supposed to be resting before they dressed, while Cornelia, happy-eyed and calm, sat among them for a few minutes’ reunion.
“Isn’t it awfully queer that you should be the first of the bunch to get married?” burst forth Natalie, the most engaged and engaging of the group. “I thought I was to be the very first myself right after I graduated, and here we’ve had to put it off three times because Tom lost his position. And Pearl broke her engagement, and Ruth’s gone into business, and Jane is up to her eyes in music. It seems queer to have things so different from what we planned, doesn’t it? My, how we pitied you, Cornie, that day you had to leave. It seems an awful shame you had to go home then, when such a little time would have given you all that fun to remember. I don’t see why such things have to happen anyway. I think it was just horrid you never graduated. I don’t see why somebody couldn’t have come in here and taken care of things till you got through. It meant so very much to you. You missed so much, you know, that you can never, never make up.”
Cornelia from her improvised couch by the window smiled dreamily.
“Yes, but that was the day I met my new mother,” she said, almost as if she had forgotten their existence and were speaking to herself; “and she introduced me to Arthur. Probably I would never have seen either of them if I hadn’t come home just that day.
A galaxy of eyes turned upon her, searching for romance, and studied her sweet face greedily.
“Don’t pity her any more girls,” cried Natalie. “She’s dead in love with him, and hasn’t missed us nor our commencement one little minute. She walked straight into the land of romance that day when she left us, and hasn’t thought of us since. I wonder she ever remembered to invite us to the wedding. But I’m not surprised either. If he’s half as stunning as his picture, he must be a pippin. I’m dying to meet him! What kind of a prune is his mother? I think she must be horrid to demand your presence at the station to meet her two hours before the ceremony. I must say I’d make a kick at that.”
“Oh,” said Cornelia, a haughty color coming into her cheeks. “You don’t understand. She didn’t demand! She doesn’t even know. Arthur and I are surprising her. Arthur just sent a telegram to the train for her to get off at the West Philadelphia station. She expected to go on to Broad Street. Oh! she is the dearest mother; wait till you see her.”
A tap at the door interrupted her, and Louise entered shyly. “Nellie, dear, I hate to interrupt you; but that man, that Mr. Ragan, has come; and he’s so anxious to see you just a minute mother said I better tell you so you could send him down a message. It’s something about the curtains for his house. I think he wants birds on them, or else he doesn’t, I don’t know which. He’s so afraid you’ve already ordered the material, and he wants it the way you said first, he says.”