But Molly muttered, frantically:
“I know Aunt Lucy will not be willing!”
“Lucy Everett has nothing to do with it. I shall not ask her advice, nor Cecil her consent. If you love Cecil, there is no more to do but to marry him and settle down,” proclaimed Mrs. Barry with the air of an autocrat, and she added, after a minute, sharply: “I don’t think I shall even invite Lucy Everett to the wedding, for she would want to bring that Trueheart girl, and she shall never with my consent cross the threshold of a Barry!”
“As for the wedding things, don’t they order them always from Paris? Then, what more will Louise need but a traveling-dress, since we will go straight to Europe on our wedding-tour. She can get all the dresses she wants, then,” said Cecil Laurens, eagerly.
“That is true,” said the old lady, adding slyly: “What a hurry you are in all at once, Cecil!”
He flushed and laughed, then said, with a fond glance at Molly:
“I am in a hurry for my happiness; but then you know, Mrs. Barry, I have been a spoiled boy always, and never had patience enough to wait for anything I wanted!”
“You never had to wait, being one of Fortune’s favorites, always!” she replied, indulgently.
And Molly thought, with a hushed sigh:
“He will hate me one day, because he will meet his first disappointment through me!”