“It is not fixed yet, uncle,” replied Ethel with a blush and smile, “but we talk of some day early in June.”
“The month of roses!” he said. “There is no lovelier time in the year to my thinking, and I hope weather and everything else may prove propitious. But what about the trousseau for each of you? Your Uncle Albert and I wish to provide that.”
“Thank you very, very much, uncles!” exclaimed both the girls in a breath; “but we think you have already done more than we had any right or reason to expect.”
“Not more by any means than we are disposed to do for our dead brother’s children,” he replied, Mr. Albert adding, “No, nor nearly so much. I will give each a hundred dollars to be laid out in that way.”
“And I will do the same,” added their Uncle George, “and I want the double wedding to take place in my parlor, Albert and I dividing the expense between us. We have talked it all over calculating the probable cost.”
“Oh, how kind and generous you are, uncles!” exclaimed Ethel, her eyes full of grateful tears; “but it will make so much work for——”
“No matter for that,” interrupted her Uncle George with simulated gruffness. “Mrs. Wood and Dorothy will be only too glad of the opportunity to make a grand display of refreshments and so forth, and will enjoy seeing how the brides are dressed, how pretty they look, and how they behave—with what modest grace they carry off their honors. Besides your Aunt Sarah wants to see the ceremony and cannot well get out to look upon it in any other place.”
“And there is no place that I should like better, uncle,” said Blanche, her face beaming with pleasure. “It is my old home, where I was always so kindly treated by you, and no other place could be more like a father’s house for me to be married from.”
“But mine I hope would not be less like a father’s house to you, Blanche?” remarked Mr. Albert Eldon, looking affectionately into her eyes.
“No, uncle, dear, yours would be just about the same, for I cannot make up my mind which of you I love the best,” returned Blanche, giving to him also a look of ardent affection. “I have only one regret in going away to my new home—that I must leave you two, and other dear relatives behind.”