They certainly guessed right the very first time. Edith Williams was to be the first of the old guard to marry, and she was certainly the last to expect such a thing. She took the astonishment of her friends very coolly and accepted their congratulations without the least embarrassment.
“I can’t see what you are making such a fuss about. You must have known all the time that my hatred of the male sex was a pose, just adopted because I had a notion that no man in his senses could ever see anything in me to care for; or if one did, he would be such a poor thing that I could not care for him. But,” with a complacent smile, “I find I was mistaken.”
“Tell us all about him, do please, Edith. I know he is splendid or you would not want him,” said Molly, handing Edith the first plate piled with all dainties.
“I can’t eat and talk, too, so I’ll cut my love affair short. His name is plain James Wilson, but he is not plain, at all. He is very tall, very good looking and very clever. He is dramatic critic on a big New York paper and has written a play that is to be produced in the fall. Oh, girls, I can’t keep it up any longer! I mean, this seeming coldness. He is splendid and I am very happy!” With which outburst, she attempted to hide her blushes in her plate, but Katherine rescued it, saying sternly, “Don’t ruin the food, but effuse on your napkin,” which made them laugh and restored Edith’s equanimity. Then the girls learned that she was to be married in two weeks and go to Nova Scotia on her honeymoon.
“Next!” rapped Margaret. “How about you, my Jessica, and what have you done with your winter?”
Pretty Jessie blushed and held up her fingers, bare of rings. “Not even any borrowed ones?” laughed Judy. “Why, Jessie, I believe you have sought the safety that lies in numbers, and have so many beaux you can’t decide among them.”
“I have had a glorious debutante winter and do not feel much like settling down as yet,” confessed the little beauty. “There is lots of time for serious thoughts like matrimony later on.”
“So there is, my child, but don’t do like the poor princess who was so choosey that she ended by having to take the crooked stick. My Jessica must have the best stick in the forest, if she must have any at all,” said Margaret, putting her arm around her friend. “For my part, I have had a busy winter and haven’t felt the need of a stick, straight or crooked. What with entertaining for my father and keeping up the social end necessary for a public man, and a general welfare movement I am interested in, and the Suffrage League, I have often wished I had an astral body to help me out. Mind you, I am not opposed to matrimony, but I am just not interested in it for myself.”
“That is a dangerous sentiment to express,” teased Judy. “I find that a statement like that from a handsome young woman usually means she is taking notice. Come now, Margaret, if, instead of having an astral body to do part of the work you are planning for yourself, you had been born triplets, you would have let one of you get married, wouldn’t you? Now ‘fess up. Margaret could attend the suffrage meetings, and Maggie could look after the child’s welfare, while dear, handsome, wholesome Peggy could be the beloved wife of some promising public man. I don’t believe Margaret or Maggie would mind at all if Peggy had to hurry home from the meetings to have the house attractive for a brilliant young Senator from the western states whom we shall call ‘the Baby of the Senate’ just for euphony, and who would come dashing up to the door in his limousine whistling ‘Peg o’ my Heart’ in joyful anticipation of his welcome.”
Margaret, the stately and composed, was blushing furiously at Judy’s nonsense.