This is—this is my wedding morning!"
But my haste is done. I am radiantly ready now, and there are seven still and shining hours ahead.
My trunk is packed with jolly Island clothes; my bag stands ready to close; my sitting room is running over with gifts, little and large, proud and pitiful,—from Marty Wetherby's opulent clock and Rodney Harrison's gorgeous silver service to "Angerleek's" preserves and the hand-painted mustard pot from Ethel and Jerry and Billiken, and a virtuously ugly dusting cap from Mrs. Mussel. If only you were here, Sally dearest! But I know your mother needs you, and it must be a blessed thing to have a mother to need you!
Sally, I'm feeling very proud and very humble, very——
Later.
Just as I wrote that, Michael Daragh came, white, tight-lipped, more than ever like the Botticelli St. Michael; he was the "Captain-General of the Hosts of Heaven." All he needed was a sword.
"Woman, dear," he said, "I've the sad, terrible news will be breaking your heart."
"Have you decided not to marry me?" I asked, facetiously, but I didn't feel in the least humorous.
"'Tis my lad," he said, "Randal. She's thrown him over, that girl. Destroyed he is with grief and shame, bound again for the black pit."
I tried to comfort him. I said I was sure the boy was too firmly on his feet to slip now, but he knew better, or worse, and he said he dared not leave him for an hour, and then, Sarah, I began to see what it meant, and it turned me to iron and ice.