Never was there such generosity, such hospitality, such wealth of friendship! True, I have no wedding finery; but as I am perforce a Scottish bride, I can be married in the white gown with the silver thistles in which I went to Holyrood.
Mr. Anstruther took a night train to and from London, to choose the bouquets and bridal souvenirs. Lady Baird has sent the veil, and a wonderful diamond thistle to pin it on,—a jewel fit for a princess! With the dear Dominie's note promising to be an usher came an antique silver casket filled with white heather. And as for the bride-cake, it is one of Salemina's gifts, chosen as much in a spirit of fun as affection. It is surely appropriate for this American wedding transplanted to Scottish soil, and what should it be but a model, in fairy icing, of Sir Walter's beautiful monument in Princes Street! Of course Francesca is full of nonsensical quips about it, and says that the Edinburgh jail would have been just as fine architecturally (it is, in truth, a building beautiful enough to tempt an æsthete to crime), and a much more fitting symbol for a wedding-cake,—unless, indeed, she adds, Salemina intends her gift to be a monument to my folly.
Pettybaw kirk is trimmed with yellow broom from these dear Scottish banks and braes; and waving their green fans and plumes up and down the aisle where I shall walk a bride, are tall ferns and bracken from Crummylowe Glen, where we played ballads.
As I look back upon it, the life here has been all a ballad from first to last. Like the elfin Tam Lin,
"The queen o' fairies she caught me
In this green hill to dwell,"
and these hasty nuptials are a fittingly romantic ending to the summer's poetry. I am in a mood, were it necessary, to be "ta'en by the milk-white hand," lifted to a pillion on a coal-black charger, and spirited "o'er the border an' awa'" by my dear Jock o' Hazledean. Unhappily, all is quite regular and aboveboard; no "lord of Langley dale" contests the prize with the bridegroom, but the marriage is at least unique and unconventional; no one can rob me of that sweet consolation.
So "gallop down the westlin skies," dear Sun, but, prythee, gallop back to-morrow! "Gang soon to bed," an you will, but rise again betimes! Give me Queen's weather, dear Sun, and shine a benison upon my wedding morn!
[Exit Penelope into the ballad-land of maiden dreams.]
The Riverside Press