That she would be disposed of by no one but her grandmother rather pleased the old lady than otherwise; so she invested in yet another black silk gown, over which she was to wear a seldom seen cape of point lace worked by Dawn's mother; and she also purchased a wonderful bonnet, and armed herself with a new pair of "lastings." Thus Dawn was to have her way in this particular, but the old dame adhered to her original intention in the matter of the Mudeheepes.
"I've kep' 'em at bay long enough now. I'll just acknowledge 'em this once, or it will seem as if you was a 'illegitimate,'" said she in the plenitude of her worldly wisdom, and thereupon "writ" a stiff though not discourteous letter to Dawn's father, inviting any number of the bride's relatives up to six, to come and spend a week before the wedding in her home, for the purpose of making Dawn's acquaintance.
"There, I have done me duty, and they can suit theirselves whether they come or go to Halifax," she remarked as she despatched the communication.
They came. Dawn's father, his second wife, and his youngest sister, Miss Mudeheepe, arrived three days before the wedding and remained to grace the ceremony.
Dawn, being a mere girl, perhaps it was Ernest's wealth and position induced them to meet Mrs Martha Clay's overture, for they were thorough snobs, but if they had come prepared to patronise, their intention was killed ere it bore fruit.
The hostess hired the town 'bus to convey them from the station, and despatched Andrew, with many injunctions to "conduct hisself with reason," to meet them there, while she and Dawn waited to receive them on one of the old porches. It was a bower of roses and pot-plants, and further shaded by a graceful pepper-tree, and made a beautiful frame for the grandmother and the maiden,—the old dame so straight and vigorous, the girl as roseate and fresh as her name, but each equally haughty and bent upon maintaining their iron independence of the people who had discarded the girl and her mother ere the former had been born.
Personal appearance was much in their favour, and no practised belle of thirty could have held her own better than the inexperienced girl of nineteen, whose native wit and downright honesty of purpose were more than equal to all the diplomacy of thrust and parry to be gained by living in society. Her stepmother, who was apparently as good-natured as she seemed brainless, was prepared to be gushing, but that was nipped in the bud by the way Dawn extended her pretty, firm hand with the dimpling wrist and knuckles and exquisitely tapering fingers.
Her father and aunt, who were tall and angular, with thin faces of dull expression, met a similar reception, and she presented them to me herself, explaining that I was a very dear friend with her for the wedding.
I had long since risen from a boarder to be a guest and friend of the house, and it had devolved upon me to exhibit the presents and interview the endless callers at this time of nine days' wonder.
It being hot, the ladies retired to doff their hats ere partaking of afternoon tea, and Dawn took her father's hat while he trumpeted in his handkerchief and attempted a few commonplace platitudes from the biggest and stiffest arm-chair in the "parler," into which he had subsided. I left the room, but could hear him from where I stood awaiting the ladies' reappearance, one from the room that had been Miss Flipp's and the other from the one I had at first occupied, and Mr George Mudeheepe was to occupy the third one of these apartments, which had been empty since the tragedy.