The row of maiden's testimonials had received their crowning complement. The beginning at the Beach had touched its shining end. As she and mamma had planned it, so it had magically fallen out.
When Mrs. Heth heard the tidings (which she did within three minutes of Carlisle's arrival at home) the good lady hardly restrained the tears of jubilee. Having all but abandoned hope, she was swept off her feet by the overwhelming revulsion of feeling, and her attitude--for of course mamma always produced an attitude about everything upon the spot--was not merely ecstatic, but tender and magnanimously humble. For it was clear now that the daughter had outpointed the mother at the Great Game; Cally had justified her flare-up; and Mrs. Heth, with eyes nobly moist, begged forgiveness for all the hibernal harshnesses.
"You must make allowances for the natural anxieties of a loving mother's heart," said she, in the first transports.... "You've done me so proud, dear little daughter. Proud!... How Society will open its eyes!..."
"So he is coming to dinner with us!" she added a moment later, exulting with her eyes. "He will speak to your father then.... It's not too late to add a course or two. And we must have out the gold coffee-set...."
Canning dined in state at the House that night, with coffee from the gold set. Next evening, there were similar ceremonies. Accompanying Carlisle homeward on the day following their re-meeting, Canning had meant to return at once to New York; for his long furlough had now run out, and he had felt a man's call of duty upon him. Moreover, it was already arranged that he should come again for a real betrothal visit, sometime before the first of May. Yet he lingered on for four days now, a man magnetized beyond his own control. Radiant days were these.
In view of Carlisle's desire that her news should not tamely leak out, depriving the Announcement of its due éclat, some little discretion was of course necessary at this period: else people would talk and say afterwards that they knew it all along. She saw that she must still make engagements which did not include her betrothed; she must meet the archnesses of her little world with blank looks above the music in her heart, with many evasions, and even, perhaps, a harmless fib or two. Nevertheless, the lovers secured many hours all to themselves. Shut from public view in Mr. Heth's study, and more especially in long motor rides down unfrequented by-lanes they were deep in the absorptions of exploring each other, of revealing themselves each to each. And to Carlisle these hours, marked upon their faces with the first fresh wonder of her conquest, were dazzling beyond description.
Spring was coming early this year, slipping in on light bright feet. And in the House of Heth there was felt a vernal exuberance, indeed: permeating papa even, extending to the very servants. Mr. Heth had received the news of the great event with profound satisfaction, asserting unequivocally that Canning was the finest young man he had ever seen. And yet, unlike mamma, his joy was tempered with a certain genuine emotion at the prospect of so soon losing the apple of his eye.
"You know the old rhyme, Cally," said he, pinching her little ear--"'Your son's your son all his life, but your daughter's your daughter till she becomes a wife.'... Don't let it be that way, my dear. You're all the son your old father's got...."
As to mamma, her feet remained in the clouds, but her head grew increasingly practical. She had been rather opposed to postponing the announcement, being ever one for the bird in the hand; but she had yielded with good grace, and within the hour was efficiently planning the "biggest" wedding, and the costliest wedding-reception, ever given in that town. By the second day she was giving intelligent thought to the trousseau--every stitch should be bought in Paris, except a few of the plainer things, in New York--and had finally decided that the refreshments at the reception should be "by Sherry." People should remember that reception so long as they all did live.
"All the Canning connection shall come," she cried,--"rely on me to get them here,--and all the most fashionable and exclusive people in the State. Every last one of them," said she, "except Mary Page."