The wedding gifts were in Jean’s special care, to receive and arrange for Ray to examine when she could. They were numerous, for Ray had many friends among the young people of her circle, and most of them remembered her with some choice token. There were no costly articles for the gift table. Uncle Evarts, in response to his invitation, had written a letter voluminous with regrets that a most important business engagement falling on the date of the wedding would prevent his coming, and his wife was detained by the illness of a grandchild. They sent their love and blessing, and hoped that Ray would be as happy as she deserved. They also sent six pretty silver coffee spoons, so tiny that Jean thought they might get lost even in after-dinner coffee cups! Aunt Caroline was reported as in the throes of one of her terrible sick headache sieges, the effects of which often made her unfit for travelling for several weeks. She caused to be sent a five-dollar gold-piece, with instructions to Ray to buy something she wanted, and mark it with her Aunt Caroline’s name. Jean managed to refrain from comment concerning these gifts from their wealthy relatives, but she permitted herself the comfort of a curling lip, as she placed them on the table, and made the apparently irrelevant remark that she wished she could rip the lace from the wedding dress and lay it beside them for a few minutes. Aunt Elsie understood, but answered her only with a tender smile. Aunt Elsie was being very glad over those same tiny spoons; she knew better than did any of the others that it was a proof of grace triumphant that they were there at all. She had feared that Uncle Evarts and his family would not be invited to the wedding nor could she blame her brother Joseph if he considered himself excused from such invitations to his house; feeling miserably sure, as he now did, of Evarts’ unfair dealings in the past. But, lo, it was Joseph who gave the final decision. “Invite him by all means, daughter; we can not right any past wrongs by hurting his feelings now.” It was simply an added proof that Joseph Forman, struggling as he had for days, even for weeks, with a resentment so bitter and a hurt so deep that he thought he could never meet his brother Evarts again and speak quietly to him as friend to friend, had risen victoriously above it. Aunt Elsie, looking on, knowing much about it all from the dead brother, shrewdly surmising what she did not already know, waited and feared and prayed and hoped, and now was glad. But she knew that she was glad, not so much for Evarts’ sake, as for Joseph’s.
It was not until the marriage ceremony had been performed, and the bride’s cake duly cut and passed, and the bride in travelling attire was beginning to think of the good-bys that must come before she and Kendall went out from the dear home together, that there appeared on the gift table up stairs a new package, a large, heavy envelope that filled Jean with astonishment.
“Where in the world—” she began; then Derrick, whose quick glance had followed her’s; “Hello! what is this? It wasn’t here an hour ago, where did it come from?”
“I can’t imagine; I never saw it before. There hasn’t been a mail since three o’clock, and I looked after that.”
Derrick fingered the package curiously.
“It hasn’t been mailed,” he said. “It must have come by a messenger; it is a legal document of some sort; look at the seal; and it is addressed to ‘Mrs. Kendall Forsythe’; there wasn’t such a person an hour ago. I wonder if it can be a joke? Who put it here?”
“How should I know? All I know is that it wasn’t on the table when I went downstairs, just before the ceremony. Dick, what if it should be something hateful, a kind of joke that would annoy her. Wouldn’t that be horrid?”
“If it is, she won’t see it nor hear of it,” Derrick said, resolutely. “We’ll show it to Kendall and—see here, the thing isn’t sealed; I’ll look at it myself, and if—Oh, hello! Why Jean Forman!”
[CHAPTER XV]
“FOOLS”
“WHAT is it?” Jean asked, coming to look over his shoulder.