"If you had kept off a bit I would be sitting right there now instead of that young fellow. They seem to chatter away like old friends."
The next morning John and Mary ate breakfast together in Washington and that afternoon journeyed on to New York. When they went into the diner for supper and the waiter referred to Mary as John's wife, she did not blush, but touched his arm and looked at him with a smile of confidence and love. As he returned the glance a close observer would have said; "They are newly married."
The next morning Mrs. Cornwall received a telegram: "Have followed your advice. Married Mary last night. Her picture is on my dresser. You can wire us at The McAlpin. John."
Mary and John also telegraphed her mother announcing the marriage and stating that they would stop over ten days on their way home to Harlan.
John accompanied Mary to Wellesley, where she finally succeeded in explaining why it was necessary that she should be permitted to resign as teacher of mathematics.
The girls at first sight of John were quite hysterical, exclaiming: "What a handsome man Miss Saylor's brother is!" When they learned his identity and that he came to take her away, he was condemned as a horrid old baldheaded man. This opinion was mildly modified at the farewell dinner the school gave to Miss Saylor, where John at his best gave the young ladies an informal talk on,—"School Days, School Teachers and Matrimony." More than half of the girls were so impressed by the sense and sentiment of his talk that for a day or two they thought seriously of becoming teachers and waiting until they were thirty, when they would marry a nice-looking and prosperous young lawyer like Miss Saylor's John.
John rushed through his business engagement in Boston; then they went down to Atlantic City for several days.
He had written Bradford and Mr. Rogers telling of his marriage. They had each telegraphed congratulations and insisted that John wire the time of their arrival in Pittsburgh. This he did.
They were met at the station by Bradford and Dorothy and Mr. Rogers and his wife. Both families insisted that they should be their guests while in the city. A compromise was effected by going home with Bradford and Dorothy and accepting an invitation to be the guests of honor Thursday evening at the Rogers home, where they were to remain for the night after a reception and dinner, leaving the next day for Kentucky over the Pennsylvania.