'I guess now I'll wait a spell, and let old Peterkin go to thunder,' he decided, and for two weeks and more Ann Eliza watched in vain for his coming, while Peterkin remarked to his wife that if Tom Tracy was goin' to play fast and loose with his gal, he'd find himself brought up standin' mighty lively.
The news that Harold and Jerrie were soon to be married, and go with Arthur to Germany, created some surprise, and some talk, too, in town, where many of the people had believed that there had been an understanding, if not an engagement, between Harold and Maude. But Tom put that right with a few decided words. There had never been an engagement, he said. Maude had liked Harold very much, and he had liked her, but had always preferred Jerrie; in short, matters had been as good as settled between them, long ago.
This last was a little fiction of Tom's brain, but the people accepted it as true, and began to look eagerly forward to the approaching marriage, wondering, as people will, who would be invited, and who would not. It took place the 10th of October, in Mrs. Crawford's little parlor, with only a few intimate friends present—Grace Atherton, the St. Claires, Ann Eliza Peterkin, and the Tracys, with the exception of Dolly, who could not do so great violence to her feeling, as to attend a wedding. Billy was not there, but he sent a magnificent emerald ring to Jerrie, with the following note:
DEAR JERRIE,—I can't see you married, although I am glad for you, and glad for Hal. God bless you both. I shall never forget you as long as I live; and when you come back, maybe I can bear to see you as Hal's wife, but now it would kill me. Good-bye.
Jerrie read this note with wet eyes up in her room, and then passed it to Harold, to whom she told of that episode under the butternut tree, when Billy asked her to be his wife.
'Poor Billy! I am awful sorry for him, but I can't let him have you, Jerrie,' Harold said, passing the note back to her, and kissing her tenderly, as he added: 'That is my last kiss for Jerrie Tracy, my little girl of the carpet-bag. When I kiss you again, you will be my wife.'
'Come, children, we are waiting,' came with startling distinctness from Arthur at the foot of the stairs, and then Harold and Jerrie went down to the parlor, where they were soon made one, Arthur giving the bride away, and behaving pretty well under the circumstances.
He had been very flighty the day before, insisting that Jerrie should be married in white, with a blue ribbon on her bonnet, just as Gretchen had been, and when she reminded him of Maude's recent death, he replied:
'Well, Gretchen will wear colors if you do not.'
And again he brought out and laid upon his bed the dress bought in Paris years before, and which had been waiting for Gretchen on that stormy night when he heard the wild cry of the dying woman above the wintery gale. She was with him again in fancy, and when he went out to the carriage which was to carry him to the cottage, he stepped back and stood a moment by the door as if to let some one enter before him, and all during the ceremony those nearest to him heard him whispering to himself, 'I, Arthur, take thee, Gretchen,' and so forth; but when it was over he came to himself and seemed perfectly rational, as he kissed his daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law, to whom he gave a check for ten thousand dollars, saying as he did so, that young men must have a little spending money.