Interrupted

by Pansy

"Claire, I have a plan worth a dozen of yours. Let us have the mother and Dora here for a visit. They want to see the little church which they have helped to build. Nothing could be pleasanter. Then all your girls, and all your boys, could be present at the ceremony. Think what that would be for Bud! He would never forget it. Neither would this struggling minister; it would afford an excuse for doing for him just what we want to do. The law does not regulate the amount of marriage fees, you know."

Mr. Chessney was an eloquent pleader; and Dora's letter, it must be confessed, plead against the delay that Claire had thought was wise. Of course, she demurred; of course, she hinted at the plans that she had formed for getting ready; but the party on the opposite side had an answer for every argument. He was sure that the way to do would be to get ready afterward, when she would have leisure and his invaluable presence and advice, instead of being hampered with music-scholars, and he miles away, alone, waiting, and Dora waiting and suffering, and the mother thinking her sad thoughts. Happy surprises were all very well; they were delightful. He was entirely in sympathy with her desire to tell mamma and Dora the story of the new home in person, only he believed with all his heart that it would be cruel, and therefore wrong, to burden that young heart with the question of ways and means a moment longer than was necessary. As for Mrs. Foster, she could supply Claire's place quietly, and thereby make some poor music-teacher's heart unexpectedly glad.

Of course, Claire was overruled. She had really not one sensible reason to offer why she should remain exiled from mamma and Dora any longer.

There was a little feeling of pride, it is true, about the "getting ready afterward;" but as she looked it over carefully and prayerfully, it seemed, even to herself, a mean pride, unworthy of the woman who was to be Harold Chessney's wife.

Then there was a fascination in the thought of Dora planning for that reception—really being the one to invite whom she would among "the girls," instead of being the one left out in the cold.

Also it was pleasant to think what an event it would be to her girls, and to Bud; and her cheeks glowed over the thought of the marriage-fee that would find its way into the lean pocket-book of the overburdened minister.

I would like to tell you the whole story in detail: what Dora said when the letter came imploring her mother and herself to come to South Plains for a few weeks' visit; how the mother demurred on the ground of expense, and yet confessed that it made her heart beat wildly to think of getting her arms around Claire again.

"But I can not think what has become of the dear child's good sense," she would add, with a sigh. "Why, Dora dear, she did not come home, you know, because the trip would cost so much, and here she is planning for two of us to take it."

"Never mind, mamma," would Dora reply, for Dora was desperately determined on this trip to South Plains, "Claire has planned a way; and we shall save our food if we stay two weeks, and that will be something; and she has sent us the tickets, so the money is spent. Oh, mamma, let us go anyway."

And of course they went. Yes, I would delight to tell you all about it. What a sensation there was in South Plains, and how full the little church was, and how well Bud looked walking down the aisle as one of the ushers, and how people said the Ansteds certainly would not come, they would feel it a family insult, but how the Ansteds not only came, but took almost entire charge of everything.