It was a very pleasant wedding, and every one seemed happy, even to Dick, whose spirits, however, were rather too gay to be quite natural, and whose voice shook just a little as he called Jerrie Mrs. Hasting, and told her he hoped to see her in Paris in the spring as he thought of going over there with Nina to join the Raymonds.
'Oh, I hope you will! Nothing could make me so happy as to meet you there,' Jerrie said, looking at him with an expression which told him she was thinking of the pines and was sorry for him.
The newly married pair were going directly to New York, where Arthur was to join them on the 4th, as the Germanic sailed the 15th.
All the wedding guests accompanied them to the station, Tom accepting a seat in the coupé with Ann Eliza, who wore her two hundred dollar gown, and was, of course, overdressed. But Tom did not think much about that. He was ill at ease that morning, though trying to seem natural; and when the train which took Jerrie away disappeared from view, he felt as if everything which had made life desirable had left him forever, and he cared but little now what he did, or with whom his lot was cast.
So when Ann Eliza, who had cried at parting with Jerrie, dried her eyes and said to him, 'It is such a fine day; suppose we drive along the river; it may dispel the blues,' he assented, and soon found himself bowling along the smooth turnpike with Ann Eliza, whom he thought rather interesting, with the tears shed for Jerrie on her long, light eyelashes.
'I shall miss her so much, and be so lonely without her. I hope you'll call often,' she said to him, when at last the drive was over, and Tom promised that he would, and kept his promise, too; for after Arthur left, he found Tracy Park so insupportably dull, with his father always in Maude's room and his mother always in tears, that it was a relief to go to Le Bateau and be made much of as if he were a prince and treated to nice little lunches and suppers, even if old Peterkin did make one of the party and disgust him so at times that he felt as if he must snatch up his hat and fly.
And one night, when the old man had been more than usually disagreeable and pompous, he did start up abruptly and leave the house, mentally vowing never to enter it again.
'I'd rather saw wood and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full pursuit and beckoning him to stop.
'I'm goin' to walk a spell with you,' he said, locking his arm in Tom's as he came up. 'I want to have a little talk.'
'Yes,' Tom faltered, with a dreadful sinking of the heart, while Peterkin went on: