“All right; you be sure to go. You never saw an army wedding? I guess ’most everybody will be there.”
When he reminded her that it was time to dress she answered indifferently that she didn’t care to go to the reception, and that the gown she had on would be perfectly suitable.
“I’ll just watch the show from a back seat, papa; you can see a wedding better from the rear, anyhow.”
“Well, don’t hurry back on my account.”
She had been afraid that he would raise some objection to her going without an escort; but he made no comment.
She ran her eyes over the things in her room—photographs of girls she had known at boarding-school, trifles for the toilet-table that had been given her on birthdays and holidays. It was a big comfortable room, the largest bedroom in the house, with a window-seat that had been built specially for her when she came home from school. She glanced over the trinkets that littered the mantel, and took from its leathern case a medal she had won in school for excellence in recitations. On the wall hung a photograph of herself as Rosalind, a part she had played in an out-of-doors presentation of “As You Like It.”...
She must leave some explanation of her absence—so she sat down at her desk and wrote:—
Dear Papa:—
Please don’t be hard on me, but I’ve run away to marry Mr. Copeland. We are going to Lafayette to his cousin’s and shall be married at her house to-night. I hope you won’t be hard on me; I shall explain everything to you when I see you and I think you will understand. We shall be back very soon and I will let you know where I shall be.
She hesitated a moment and then closed with “Your loving daughter, Nan.” She thrust this into an envelope, addressed it in a bold hand to Timothy Farley, Esq., and placed it under a small silver box on the mantel.