“He doesn’t seem very neighborly, according to reports. I’ve found him pleasant the few times I have met him,” said Dr. Morton, “but let’s have Alice’s letter.”
Mrs. Morton adjusted her spectacles and began to read.
“Dear, Dear Mrs. Morton:
“If we could only have had all the Morton family, great and small, present, the Harding-Fletcher Nuptials, as Dick insists upon calling our wedding–he quotes from the Cincinnati paper–would have been absolutely perfect. Uncle Joseph and Aunt Clara couldn’t have done more for me if I had been their very own. Aunt Clara insisted upon having the big church wedding, which I fear your quiet taste would not approve, but it was very lovely. And I do think the atmosphere of a big church and the beautiful music are wonderfully impressive. Dick says it’s the proper thing to tie the bridal knot with all the kinks you can invent–it makes it more secure. He said it was miles from the vestry to the chancel and his knees got mighty wobbly before he arrived, but after thinking it over, he concluded I was worth the walk–the heathen! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that the sun shone on the bride most gloriously and the old 32church was a perfect bower of apple-blossoms and white lilacs. My wedding dress was white satin with a train. I wore Aunt Clara’s wedding veil. It was real Brussels lace and I was scared to death for fear something would happen to it. I warned Dick off until he declared that the next time he got married the bride should either be out in the open, or have a mosquito net that wasn’t perishable. I’m not going to tell you about my trousseau because I intend to bring it along to show you. I want you to be surprised, and oh! and ah! over every single thing, because it is so wonderful for Alice Fletcher to have such beautiful clothes. Dick is looking over my shoulder and he says he thinks it’s time I learned that my name is Alice Harding. He says he’s going to have a half-dozen mottoes printed with—
‘My name is Harding.
On the Cincinnati hills
I lost the Fletcher!’
on them, and hang them about our happy home. Tell Chicken Little I’ve saved a big chunk of bride’s cake for her, and I’m dying to see her. It doesn’t seem possible that she is almost as tall as Marian.”
The letter ran on with much pleasant chatter of the new home, which was the same dear old one where Alice had been born, and where the Morton 33family had spent the two happy years that were already beginning to seem a long way off.
Alice had graduated the preceding year, but Uncle Joseph would not listen either to her plea that she should pay the money back from her little inheritance, or that she should carry out her plan of teaching. He said it would be bad enough to give her up to Dick just as they had all learned to love her–she must stay with them as long as possible.
Dick’s letter was as full of nonsense as Dick himself. It was written with many flourishes to:
“Miss Chicken Little Jane Morton,