“Well, maybe not. I’m hoping he’ll always feel that way. I didn’t want to announce it, but Dan wouldn’t wait any longer. Of course we’ve been half engaged for about two years.”
“Yes, I know.” Lorraine wondered if her voice sounded metallic.
“So I said yes, and now Dan is neglecting business. He was here at half-past eight this morning to ask if I wanted the walls tinted or papered; and he’s gone right ahead and ordered a most extravagant ring—two carat in platinum—really, I don’t approve for I’m so careless of all my things I’m bound to lose it. I’d rather he didn’t start the house either. If I were only like you, I’d be delighted with the prospect of a pantry and a million shelves and drawers and the promise of any sort of range or fireless cooker and all the other appliances, but I’m not even interested.”
“You’re not? Why, Thurley, Dan will have to eat! What does interest you?”
“The garden and the color of my room and, most of all, my piano. For I’m to have a baby grand piano of my very own—I won’t have to practise on the Sunday school piano any more. I’m half afraid I’m marrying Dan for that piano—don’t look shocked—I’m not, of course, only it means a great deal.”
“I can’t imagine it! But of course I haven’t your voice.” Unconsciously Lorraine glanced out the window and across the road to where, sinking into comfortable ruin, stood a tottering old box-car wagon, the one in which Thurley had travelled all the way from Boulder, Colorado!
“I wish Philena were here, she’d have so loved a wedding,” Thurley said presently, “and Granny wouldn’t be so lonesome. Did I tell you that Dan says she’s to have his old rooms at the hotel, unless she’ll live with us? She says she won’t, so, of course, the other way is easy and lovely for her.”
“He’s very generous,” Lorraine sighed. She held out her parcel. “It is just a well-wisher, as we say,” she added. “Nothing, of course, like your other things will be, but I made it myself and perhaps you will like it because of that.”
Lorraine had embroidered faint dreams and hopes of some day using the set in her house—and Dan Birge’s—into the pattern. She had many such trifles tucked away in a chest of walnut drawers.
“You’re a dear—I’m so clumsy with a needle—and it is beautiful!” Thurley said as she opened the package. “Just fancy you doing all this! Oh, Lorraine, I’ve told Dan, so many times, ‘You ought to marry Lorraine instead of me—she’d make you such a good wife.’ But men don’t pay any attention to common sense when they’re in love,” she rattled on.