"Do you call Stephen humble?"
Katie laughed merrily. "But," she said, at last, "Stephen is Stephen, and humility wouldn't suit him. He would look as badly without his pride as without his lace ruffles."
"Is it his lace ruffles you're in love with, my child?"
"I don't know, mother," and she laughed again. "When should a young girl laugh if not on the eve of her marriage with the man of her choice, when friends and wealth conspire to make the event auspicious?"
"I shall not write to thank Elizabeth for her gift," she said, "for she will be here before a letter can reach her. She leaves Boston to-morrow, that's Tuesday, and she must be here by Friday, perhaps Thursday night, if they start very early."
"I thought Master Royal's letter said Monday?"
"Tuesday," repeated Katie, "if the weather be suitable for his daughter. Look at this letter and you'll see; his world hinges on his daughter's comfort, he is father and mother both to her. Elizabeth needs it, too; she can't take care of herself well. Perhaps she could wake up and do it for somebody else. But I am not sure. She's a dear child, though she seems to me younger than I am. Isn't it funny, mother, for she knows a good deal more, and she's very bright sometimes? But she never makes the best of anything, especially of herself."
It was the day before the wedding. The great old house was full of bustle from its gambrel roof to its very cellar in which wines were decanted to be in readiness, and into which pastries and sweetmeats were carried from the pantry shelves overloaded with preparations for the next day's festivities. Servants ran hither and thither, full of excitement and pleasant anticipations. They all loved Katie who had grown up among them. And, besides, the morrow's pleasures were not to be enjoyed by them wholly by proxy, for if there was to be only wedding enough for one pair, at least the remains of the feast would go round handsomely. Two or three black faces were seen among the English ones, but though they were owned by Mr. Archdale, the disgrace and the badge of servitude had fallen upon them lightly, and the shining of merry eyes and the gleam of white teeth relieved a darkness that nature, and not despair, had made. In New England, masters were always finding reasons why their slaves should be manumitted. How could slavery flourish in a land where the wind of freedom was so strong that it could blow a whole cargo of tea into the ocean?
But there were not only servants going back and forth through the house, for it was full of guests. The Colonel's family living so near, would not come until the morning of the ceremony, but other relatives were there in force. Mrs. Archdale's brother,—a little patronizing but very rich and gracious, and his family who having been well patronized, were disposed to be humble and admiring, and her sister who not having fed on the roses of life, had a good deal of wholesome strength about her, together with a touch of something which, if it were wholesome, was not exactly grateful. Cousins of Mr. Archdale were there also. Elizabeth Royal, at Katie's special request, had been her guest for the last ten days. Her father had gone home again the day he brought her and was unable to return for the wedding and to take his daughter home afterward, as he had intended; but he had sent Mrs. Eveleigh, his cousin and housekeeper. It seemed strange that the father and daughter were so companionable, for superficially they were entirely unlike. Mr. Royal was considered stern and shrewd, and, though a well-read man, eminently practical, more inclined to business than scholarship, while Elizabeth was dreamy, generous, wholly unacquainted with business of any kind, and it seemed too much uninterested in it ever to be acquainted. To most people the affection between them seemed only that of nature and circumstances, Elizabeth being an only child, and her mother having died while she was very young. It is the last analysis of character that discovers the same trait under different forms. None of her friends carried analysis so far, and it was possible that no effort could have discovered subtle likeness then. Perhaps it was still latent and would only hereafter find some outward expression for itself. It sometimes happens that physical likeness comes out only after death, mental not until late in life, and likeness of character in the midst of unlikeness is revealed usually only in the crucible of events.
That day, Elizabeth, from her window overlooking the garden, had seen a picture that she never forgot. It was about noon, all the warmth that was in the December sun filled the garden (which the leafless trees no longer shaded). There was no snow on the ground, for the few stray flakes premonitory of winter which had fallen from time to time in the month had melted almost as soon as they had touched the ground. The air was like an Indian summer's day; it seemed impossible that winter could be round the corner waiting only for a change of wind. The tracery of the boughs of the trees and of all their little twigs against the blue sky was exquisite, the stalks of the dead flowers warmed into a livelier brown in the sunlight. Yet it may have been partly the figures in the foreground that made the whole picture so bright to Elizabeth, for to her the place was filled with the lovers who were walking there and talking, probably saying those nothings, so far as practical matters go, which they may indulge in freely only before the thousand cares of life interfere with their utterances. Stephen had come to the house, and Katie and he were taking what they were sure would prove to be their last opportunity for quiet talk before the wedding. They went slowly down the long path to the clematis arbor, and then turned back again, for it was not warm enough to sit down out of doors. Elizabeth watched them as they walked toward the house, and a warmth came into her own face in her pleasure. "Dear Katie," she said to herself, "she is sure to be so happy." The young girl's hand lay on Archdale's arm, and she was looking up at him with a smile full of joyousness. Archdale's head was bent and the watcher could not see his eyes, but his attitude of devotion, his smile, and Katie's face told the story.