“No,” she answered, coloring as she smiled. “I have declined making any engagements for the spring. I am going abroad for a year in May, and Blanche does not want a stranger here in my place.”
“Markham Burke is the man, then! My love! I congratulate you with all my heart. I have been on thorns all winter about you and the noble fellow. I was afraid you had some Quixotic notions that would stand in the way of his happiness and yours.”
“No; why should I have?” rejoined the fiancée, speaking quietly and sensibly. “We are not vowed to our trades, or to celibacy. Markham says there is no need that he, with his ample means, should let me keep up my business. Whatever I have made, he insists upon settling upon me. He would have had me divide it all between Blanche and Emma, but they would not allow it.”
“I should hope not!” cried Blanche, energetically. “Two women who can take care of themselves!’”
“Blanche will enlarge her department,” continued Imogen, “now that I will leave her room. You should hear her plans of making a temple of art—not of fashion alone—in these two parlors. It will be very beautiful. She can afford to indulge her taste in these respects. She is making money.”
“Means to be a nabob-ess before she dies—or marries,” interjected the youngest sister.
“You are a mercenary witch,” said Mrs. Harding. “Emma, Mr. Harding says your lots are rising in value fast, and the price of land in that quarter of the city is sure to increase with tenfold rapidity during the next dozen years. He would not advise you to close with the offer made you last week, unless you need the money.”
“Thank you and him!” replied the young widow. “I am not anxious to sell. Let it grow for the boys. It belongs to them. The rest of us are provided for. Even for mamma there is enough and to spare. We have never been tempted by the various straits of poverty and shabby gentility to wish for our father’s death, that we might profit by his life-insurance policy. Feeble as he is, his cheerfulness, his patience and affection for us all, make his a very bright presence in our home. It is a priceless comfort to us all that he is not compelled, when he needs them most, to relinquish the home and luxuries he toiled so long and bravely to obtain for us.”
“You can’t imagine what pride and delight he takes in the boys!” exclaimed Blanche. “We really hope he may live to see them grown.”
“It is the story of the old storks and their young, to the life,” said Mrs. Harding to her husband that night. “I used to think it a fable. I believe now that it is true, out and out!”