“Mattie, come here.” Her children could hardly recognize their mother’s voice, it was so broken, and the tears were running down her cheeks, though not one of them remembered seeing her cry before. Mattie never felt her triumph greater, never understood the magnificence of her own success, until she saw those tears, and felt the presence of her mother’s arms round her. Never since the child Mattie had had to make way for the new-born brother, and had toddled away with the never-forgotten words, “Mammy’s arms are full; no room for Mattie now,” had she laid her head upon that mother’s shoulder to indulge in the good cry that was needed to relieve her. Isabel looked almost affronted as she twirled her diamond rings round her plump fingers. When she and Ellis had been engaged, her mother had not made all this fuss. And Mattie was such an old thing; and it was so ridiculous; and her father seemed on the verge of crying too. “But then,” as Susie said afterwards, “Belle did not like her consequence to be set aside; and she and Ellis were just nobodies at all.”
No one enjoyed the scene so much as Archie: that was how his mother ought to be with her girls. Nevertheless, he interrupted them ruthlessly: 360
“Don’t make your eyes too red, Mattie: remember who will be in by and by.” And as she started up at this and began to smooth her rumpled hair, he explained to them generally that they had not travelled alone; Sir Harry had accompanied them to Leeds, and was at present dining, he believed at the Star Hotel, where he had bespoken a room. “He thought it best to make himself known personally to you; and, as Mattie raised no objection, he announced his intention of calling this evening––” but before Archie could finish his sentence, or the awe-struck domestic announce him properly, Sir Harry himself was among them all, shaking hands with everybody, down to Dottie.
And, really, for a shy man he did his part very well: he seemed to take his welcome for granted, and beamed on them all most genially.
“I suppose the parson has already introduced me,” he said, when Mr. Drummond senior held out his hand, “What a lot of you there are!” he continued, as he reached Dottie, who, dreadfully frightened at his size, tried to hide behind Susie. Dottie compared him in her own mind to one of their favorite giants. “He was so dreadfully like Fee-fo-fum in ‘Jack the Giant-Killer,’” she pouted, when Mattie afterwards took her to task, “when he kissed me I thought he was going to eat me up.”
Mattie’s dark little face lit up with shy happiness when she saw him sit down beside her mother and talk to her in his frank pleasant way. In her eyes he was nothing less than an angel of light. True, the room had never looked so small and shabby as it looked to-night, but what did that matter to Mattie?—the poor little Cinderella in the brown gown had found her prince. By and by the pumpkin-coach would fetch her to a grand house, she would have jewels and fine clothes,—everything that the heart of woman could desire; but it may be doubted if such thoughts ever crossed Mattie’s mind. That he had chosen her, this was the miracle; that she was never to be scolded, and laughed at, and teased; that he had stooped to her, this noble, great-hearted man, to raise her from her humbleness; that he could care for her, in spite of her plainness and her many faults. No wonder if such happiness almost beautified Mattie, as she sat a little apart, surrounded by her young sisters.
Mrs. Drummond’s stern face glowed with pleasure when Sir Harry in a few simple words spoke to her of his pride in winning her daughter. Could it be her homely, old-fashioned little Mattie of whom he was speaking, whose unselfishness and goodness he praised so highly! “I have never known a more beautiful nature: she does not seem to me to have an unkind thought of any one. All my cousins love her. If you will trust her to me, I think I can promise, as far as a man can, that her life shall be a happy one.” No wonder if the mother’s eyes filled with joyous tears at such words as these.
“Mattie, dear,” said Sir Harry to her the next day, when they 361 found themselves alone,—a rather difficult thing to achieve in the crowded household, but Mrs. Drummond had just left the room,—“I have been talking to your mother. She is a sensible woman, and she thinks in six weeks everything can be ready. What do you say?”
“If mother thinks so, I suppose she is right,” returned Mattie, very much confused by this sudden appeal to her opinion. Sir Harry had already importuned for a speedy marriage, and she had in much trepidation referred him to her mother, feeling herself unequal to the task of answering him.
“Yes, your mother is a sensible woman,” continued Sir Harry, taking no notice of her confusion. “She knows that a great house full of servants is more than a man can manage alone; and so, as I told her that Gilsbank was ready, and its master waiting, she was quite of my opinion that there should be no delay. You see, Mattie,” in a tone of great gentleness, “though I am very fond of you, I cannot help feeling stifled in a small house full of people. There is no getting you to myself, or being comfortable; and a man of my size feels out of place among a lot of girls. So if you are willing, as of course you are,” very coaxingly, “and I am willing, we may as well get the thing over. It takes a good deal out of a fellow to go through this sort of thing properly, and I don’t fancy I hit it off well: so we will say this day six weeks. And to-morrow you will be a good little woman, and let me go back to my comfortable quarters at Hadleigh, for one breathes only smoke here; and how you have always borne it all these years is a mystery to me.”