“Why should you say they are too good for you?” said Regina. “Nothing is too good for me to give my daughter.”
“But you were right in one thing,” said Julia, as Maudie slipped one of the sparkling stones from its nest of white velvet, and insinuated the gold ring into her ear, “they have given you something that you can wear every day.”
CHAPTER XV
A GOLDEN DAY
Most people detest tears at a wedding, and yet weddings give much more cause for tears than funerals.
At last Maudie Whittaker’s wedding day dawned—a golden July day, fair and still, without being oppressively hot. I think I have already said that the houses of Marksby and Whittaker were situated in one of the main roads of that favorite residential locality which is known to Londoners as Northampton Park, and to its residents as “the Park,” without any distinguishing prefix. A stranger passing along Milton Avenue might have wondered what great function was afoot, for at both houses flags were flying, and on lines stretched across from house to house, amidst streaming pennons, was a great green and white marriage bell. From the gate to the porch of Ye Dene Alfred Whittaker had, some two years before, erected a covered glass way, almost a conservatory. This was lined with flowers and carpeted with red felt. A couple of stalwart commissionaires stood at either side of the entrance, and a crowd of the poorer denizens of the Park had gathered to watch the coming and going of the wedding guests. I must tell you at once that on this occasion Regina was truly great.
“Mother,” Maudie had said on the previous evening, when she bade her parents good-night for the last time as Maudie Whittaker. “Mother darling, there’s one thing that you must not do to-morrow.”
“What is that, my love?” said Regina.