"Louise," said Nellie, coming back to commonplaces as soon as the eyes had taken in all the beauty, "mother wants you. She wants you to see if you think the table looks overloaded, and whether you think the turkey platters haven't too much dark meat on them, and half-a-dozen other things that I have forgotten; won't you come right away?"
"In three minutes," said Louise; but she had hardly time to attend in person to all these important matters when Nellie's voice shouted through the house,—
"There they come! There's the carriage; it has just driven through the archway. Oh, I wonder what John thought of the archway!"
When I tell that it was decorated with evergreen, on which there glowed, in roses arranged by Nellie's own fair hands, the words, "Welcome Home!" you will be sure that John liked it. Then the family gathered on that south piazza to greet the bride and groom. The aroma of coffee was stealing through the house, and the spacious dining-table, spread its entire length in the large dining-room, did almost look burdened with its weight of dishes for the wedding-feast.
Mother Morgan tarried to cover a cake-basket before she hurried to the piazza. Give one moment's time to her. Her face had grown younger; it was smooth and fair, and set in calmness. Her dress was a holiday one of soft, neutral-tinted silk, and her white lace cap, which Louise's fingers had fashioned, was wonderfully becoming to her pleasant face. Dorothy had seated herself, matronly fashion, in one of the large easy-chairs with which the piazza abounded, for the fair bundle of muslin and lace bobbing around in her lap was too restless to admit of a standing position, although admonished thus: "Do, little Miss Louise, sit still, and receive your new auntie with becoming dignity."
Little Miss Louise's papa had just dropped her ladyship out of his arms, and gone forward to open the gate for the family carriage, which, with Lewis for driver, was just emerging from the shade of the evergreens. At this moment came Father Morgan from the small room at the right of the piazza, with a pompous specimen of three-year-old boyhood perched serenely on his shoulder. He was John Morgan, junior, and liked no place so well as his grandfather's shoulder. The carriage wound around the lawn, and drew up before the piazza door, and they all—father, mother, sisters, and baby—went down to meet it. And as Estelle's bright and beautiful face, a little matured since we first knew her, but rarely beautiful still, appeared in view, and her eager arms were thrown around Mother Morgan's neck, that lady, as she heartily gave back loving kisses, said, in a voice which I am not sure you would recognize, so little have you known of her in these latter days,—
"Welcome home, my daughter!"
I wonder if I have told you that the carriage contained others beside the bride and groom? Louise had not forgotten it, for her own father and mother were actually come to pay the long-promised visit. It had been arranged that they should meet the young couple returning from their wedding trip and travel with them homeward. Louise had been home several times in the last five years, but father and mother were just fulfilling a long-made promise to visit her; and here at last were they all gathered under the Morgan roof, the two families unbroken.
They went to the spacious dining-room, and sat them down to the bountiful wedding-feast; and among them all only two had vivid recollections just then of the contrast between that home-coming and the greeting that was given Louise and Lewis on that winter night. Mrs. Dorothy Butler remembered it, it is true; but such important matters had filled Mrs. Dorothy's mind in the intervening years, and everything was so utterly changed to her, that she much doubted sometimes whether she really had not dreamed all those strange earlier experiences, and only lived through these later years. To Estelle the house was new, of course, and really handsome, and everything was delightfully improved. But Estelle did not know that hearts and faces had greatly improved. She could not imagine Mother Morgan in her straight calico without a collar; she could not see John in his shirt-sleeves, his pants tucked within his boots, as Louise saw him in imagination at that moment.
Ah! There were sweeter contrasts than those. When the bright evening drew to its close, Nellie wheeled the little centre-table close to her father's chair, and set the student lamp on it. And Farmer Morgan opened the large old Bible which always had its place of honour on that centre-table, and read: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies." And then Farmer Morgan said, with reverent voice, "Let us pray," and the two families, brought together by ties that reach into eternity, bowed together, and Father Morgan commended them all to the care of the God whom at last he and his house served.