"Yes, and besides, although Maggie had nothing to do with rescuing Arthur, it was her uncle's letter to her that gave the first account of what had really happened to Arthur. I was in the room when she came running to Brenda with the letter; it was when Brenda was nearly beside herself, waiting for some real news, and I honestly think that that letter saved her from brain fever," added Julia.
"'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Ruth, "is too trite a proverb to quote to-day, yet, however it happened, we should be thankful that Brenda escaped brain fever. No day could be more ideally suited for a wedding than this, but if Brenda's illness had been more severe than it was, who knows when the wedding could have taken place. The day might have been postponed to December or some equally disagreeable month, and no tenting on the lawn then."
"I agree with you," said Julia; "and now I must run away, for there are still several things to do for Brenda, and in less than an hour the train will be here bringing Arthur and the rest of the wedding party. Let me advise you," she concluded, "to be arrayed in your wedding garments by that time, for on an informal occasion like this you will all be needed to help entertain. Many of the guests have never been here before."
When at last the wedding guests arrived, the truth of this statement was evident, for among them were very few of the old friends of the Barlow family.
"We have had one family wedding," Brenda had protested, when her friends expressed surprise at her plans; "and now, if I wish to have mine small and quiet, I think that I ought to be suited, and Arthur, too, for he wishes everything to be just as I wish it."
There was no gainsaying this reasoning, nor would Mr. and Mrs. Barlow have asked Brenda to change her plans. What remonstrances there were came from some of the relatives, and from many of Brenda's young friends not invited to the house, who felt that in some way they were to lose something worth seeing. As Brenda had decreed that it should be a house wedding, they were not even to have the privileges of lookers-on, as might have been the case at a church wedding.
But was ever any family perfectly satisfied with the plans made for the wedding of one of its members? Was there ever a wedding in preparing for which various persons did not think themselves more or less slighted? How, then, could Brenda expect to please all in her large connection? Now, in spite of her impulsiveness, Brenda had been considered rather conventional, and on this account many felt aggrieved that she had insisted on having the affair small and informal.
Yet after all it wasn't a very small wedding, and the drawing-rooms at Rockley were well filled, though with a far less fashionable assemblage than that which had surrounded and greeted Agnes and Ralph Weston six years before. There were naturally a certain number of relatives present, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair, Dr. and Mrs. Gostar, and a few other old friends of both Brenda's and Arthur's families.
Besides the "Four," and Julia and Amy and Ruth, there were Frances Pounder and two or three of Brenda's former schoolmates. Miss Crawdon, too, had been invited, and one or two teachers from her school.
Frances Pounder, as her friends still called her, was now Mrs. Egbert Romeyn, and her husband was to perform the marriage ceremony. Mr. Romeyn's church was in a mission centre on the outskirts of the city, and Frances gladly shared his parish labors. To the great surprise of all who knew her, she had really buried the pride and haughty spirit of her school days.