Cousin Diantha wheeled in her chair and her plate danced on the table. My heart was in my mouth and I confess that I was prepared for a dudgeon such as only mistresses know when maids have the temerity to wish to marry. In that moment I found, to my misery, that I had forgotten every one of my arguments about young love and the way of the world and the durability of three-ply ingrain carpets, and I did nothing but sit trembling and fluttering for all the world as if it were my own wedding at stake. I looked beseechingly at Pelleas, and he nodded and smiled and rubbed his hands under the tablecloth—O, I could not have loved a man who would look either judicious or doubtful as do too many at the very mention of any one’s marriage but their own.
Dimly I saw Cousin Diantha look over her spectacles; I heard her amazed “Bless us, Katinka! What are you talking about?” And I half heard the little maid add “To-morrow” quite without expression as she turned to leave the room, loyally followed by Andy. And then, being an old woman and no longer able to mask my desire to interfere in everything, I was about to have the last word when Cousin Diantha turned to me and spoke:—
“Listen at that!” she cried; “listen at that! To-morrow—an’ not a scrap o’ cake in this house! An’ a real good fruit cake had ought to be three months old at the least. I declare, it don’t seem as if a wedding could be legal on sponge cake!”
I could hardly believe my ears. Not a word against the parlour, no mention of the three-ply ingrain nor any protest at all. Cousin Diantha’s one apprehension was concerning the legality of weddings not solemnized in the presence of a three-months-old fruit cake. The mince-pie-and-plum-pudding branch of our family had risen to the occasion as nobly as if she had been steeped in sentiment.
Upstairs Pelleas and I laughed and well-nigh cried about it.
“And Pelleas,” I told him, “Pelleas, you see it doesn’t matter in the least whether it’s romance or cooking that’s accountable so long as your heart is right.”
So it was settled; and I lay long awake that night and planned which door they should come in and what flowers I could manage and what I could find for a little present. Here at last, I thought triumphantly as I was dropping asleep, was a chance to overcome Nichola by the news that I had actually found another wedding at which to wear my white lady’s-cloth gown.
With that I sat suddenly erect, fairly startled from my sleep.
What was Katinka to wear?
Alas, I have never been so firmly convinced that I am really seventy as when I think how I remembered even the parson and yet could forget Katinka’s wedding gown.