“Nobody now, Tabby, but you and I,” said Aunt Jerry, as she re-entered her lonely house, and taking her cat in her arms, she cried like a child over the dumb creature, which tried in so many ways to evince its appreciation of this unusual caress.
She had said it was doubtful whether she went to the wedding or not; in fact she didn’t much believe she should; it would be cold and blustering, and she should get the neuralgia, and be in the way, and nobody would miss an old dud like her. She should of course visit Edna once any way, in her own house; but to the wedding she shouldn’t go. This was her decision till the receipt of a certain letter which came to her within a few days after Edna’s departure, and which changed her intentions at once.
“Don’t be a fool, but come. I rather want to see if you look as bad as I do.
P. O.”
That was the letter, and it sent Aunt Jerry to the glass, where she inspected herself for some little time, and decided that she was not so very bad-looking, and she’d show him that she was not, too! So she wrote to Edna that she had changed her mind and was coming to the wedding; and she went over to Livonia, and from thence to Rochester, and having inquired for the most fashionable dressmaker in the city, went to her at once, and told her where she was going, and that she did not want to disgrace her relations, and asked what she should get, and if she would make it, and how much she would charge. The price staggered her a little, and made her stop for a moment before committing herself, but remembering a recent rise in stocks which had affected her, she concluded to stand the expense, and when next she wrote to Edna she announced that she had a new black silk, making at Mrs. Baker’s, and a gray morning dress, velvet cloak, and black alpaca for travelling, and that they were to be made in style, too, and she shouldn’t shame any one. She did not add that she had indulged in a handsome set of lace and furs, and even committed the extravagance of getting a waterfall! This last article of fashion and luxury came near being the death of the poor old lady, who could not make it stay on without a whole box of pins which stuck into her head, and pulled her hair, and drove her nearly wild as she persisted in wearing it when alone, so as to get used to the horrid thing before going among the fashionables. The chest upstairs, where the yellow satin and the faded wreath were lying, was visited more than once, and the good dame in her abstraction forgot to shut the lid, and when she went again to her Mecca, she found that Tabby had made the chest and its contents into a nice bed and playhouse for the two fat, pretty kittens which for three or four weeks had lived under the woodshed floor, and only came out at intervals. The chest was locked after this and not visited again before Aunt Jerry’s departure for Rocky Point, with her new clothes, and trunk, and satchel. The dresses fitted admirably, especially the silk, which was elegant in its way, and trailed far behind the good dame, who felt more at home in her short alpaca suit, which made her look full ten years younger than her wont, and a few years younger than she really was. Some of the neighbors who enjoyed her outfit, and the remarks she made concerning it, suggested a round hat as a fitting accompaniment to her suit, but this Aunt Jerry repelled with disdain, hoping she was not such a fool as to put her old snuff-colored face under a round hat, not she. She had a nice velvet bonnet, for which she paid the ’bominable price of fifteen dollars; she should wear that, and her thread-lace veil; and she looked so nice and stylish that Edna, who was waiting for her at the station, did not recognize her at first, and looked twice at the fashionably dressed woman, holding so fast to her check, which the hackman was trying to get from her.
“Why, auntie,” she cried, when the turn of the velvet bonnet showed her Miss Pepper’s face, “how pretty, and young you look. I did not know you at first.”
“Fine feathers make fine birds,” was Aunt Jerry’s reply; but she did not seem ill-pleased with her niece’s compliment as she followed on to the little pony-carriage waiting for her, and which Edna had driven down herself.
“Is this his,—Mr. Overton’s, I mean?” Aunt Jerry asked, in some surprise; for Edna’s account of Bobtail and the square-backed buggy did not quite tally with this stylish turnout.
Edna explained, blushingly, that the establishment was her own,—a gift from Roy, who had driven it up to Rocky Point two weeks before, and left it for her use while she was there.
“Love in the tub, just now; but wait till by and by,” Aunt Jerry said; but Edna had no fears of the by and by; and her face was radiant with happiness as she drove her aunt through the main street of Rocky Point, in the direction of Uncle Phil’s.