Florence Morse Kingsley

“ The young engineer passed his arm about his Elizabeth's shoulders as the two stood at the gate watching the stately departure of the Van Duser equipage. "Well, Betty," he said, "so the mountain came to Mahomet? But the mountain doesn't seem such a bad sort, after all. I liked the way she kissed you good-bye, though I should never have guessed she was capable of it."
Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "I never was so frightened in my life as when she first came," she confessed. "But she is kind, Sam, in her way, though at first I thought it wasn't a pleasant way. ”

“ And Bob Garrett, a clerk in a Boston department store, told his sweetheart that he guessed the wedding was about their speed, and added that he knew a swell floor-walker who would look simply great as best man.
As for the young couple chiefly concerned they might have walked on air instead of on the roses strewed in their path by the little flower-girls; and the hundreds of curious eyes fastened upon them were as dim, painted eyes upon a tapestried wall. They only saw each other and the gate of that ancient Eden of the race opening before them. ”

“ Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders with a pretty air of forbearance. "I was awfully sorry about daddy," she murmured; "but I don't see how I could have done anything else under the circumstances."
"Well, I do," said Grandma Carroll severely. She buttoned her gloves energetically as she went on in no uncertain tones. "I've always been a great believer in everybody minding their own business, but there's times when a little plain speech won't hurt anybody. Things aren't going right in your house, Lizzie; I can see that without half looking. I warn you to keep an eye on your kitchen pantry. ”

“ Elizabeth wondered what Miss Tripp could possibly have said about her to her friends in Boston. But she was assured by Miss Tripp's brilliant smile that it had been something agreeable. When she came into the room after removing her hat and cloak she found her mother deep in conversation with the visitor, who made room for her on the sofa with a smile and a graceful tilt of her plumed head.
"We've been talking about you every minute, dear child. You'll see what a sweet wedding you'll have. Everything must be of the very latest; and it isn't a minute too soon to begin on your trousseau. ”

“ Evelyn Tripp met Elizabeth in South Station with open arms. "How well you are looking, you darling!" she exclaimed effusively. "Now if we can only keep those roses through all the shopping and dressmaking. It is so exhausting; but I've everything planned for you down to the last frill, and Madame Pryse has at last consented to make your gowns! If you knew what I've been through with that woman! She simply will not take a new customer; but when I mentioned the fact that you were to marry a nephew of Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser she finally capitulated. ”

“ Miss Tripp's eyebrows expressed the profoundest disappointment. "I am so sorry," she murmured, suddenly aware that she was exceedingly weary of the North wedding. "It will spoil everything."
"I can't see why," returned Elizabeth with spirit, not realising that Miss Tripp's comment applied solely to her own feelings. "It won't prevent my being married to Sam; and Sam says he is glad she is not coming. She must be a stiff, pokey sort of a person, and I am sure it will be pleasanter without her. She isn't hardly any relation to Sam, anyway, and I don't think I care to know her."
"My dear!" ”

“ Miss Tripp had been among the first to press friendly congratulations upon young Brewster, who on his part received them with the engaging awkwardness of the unaccustomed bachelor.
"You are certainly the most fortunate of men to have won that sweet, simple Elizabeth North! I've known her since she was quite a child—since we were both children, in fact, and she was always the same unspoiled, unaffected girl, so different from the young women one meets in society circles." ”

“ Miss Tripp bestowed a pitying smile upon the questioner. "Indeed they do, dear Mrs. North," she replied indulgently; "but that is merely a subterfuge; one always suspects the worst when there is no name. It pays to have the best."
This latter undeniable dictum was found to be entirely applicable to every detail of the forthcoming festivities, and involved such a multiplicity of expensive items that Grandma Carroll was openly indignant, and her more pliant daughter reduced to a state of bewildered apathy. ”

“ North, unannounced and disdaining the noisy little elevator, climbed the three flights of stairs to his daughter's apartment and tapped lightly on the corridor door. His summons was answered by an alert young woman in a frilled cap and apron. Mrs. Brewster was giving a luncheon, she informed him, and could see no one.
"But I am Mrs. Brewster's father, and she'll want to see me," the good doctor had insisted, sniffing delicately at the odours of salad and coffee which floated out to him from the gingerly opened door. "Go tell your mistress that Dr. North is here and would like to see her." ”

“ At just what point in his career Samuel Brewster had acquired the Quixotic idea that a woman, and particularly a young and beautiful woman, should not be allowed to taste the smallest drop of the world's bitterness he could not have explained. ”

“ The quick slam of the office door put a conclusive finish to the doctor's words, and his wife went back to her work on one of Elizabeth's elaborate garments with a heavy heart.
"What did Richard say?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, when the girl had gone into another room to be fitted.
"He said he couldn't possibly let me have anything more just now," said Richard's wife with a shade of reserve in her voice. "You know, mother, people are so slow in paying their bills. The doctor has any amount outstanding if he could only get it." ”

“ And what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as the price of one's happiness?
Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the matter arithmetically. [Pg 91] Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty—the latter sum representing the young engineer's monthly salary—left an undeniable balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other expenses. ”

“ You can give them to your maid afterward; they always expect to be found in aprons nowadays—if not frocks. Really, I draw the line at frocks, with the wages one is obliged to pay; and I should advise you to."
"I'm not going to have a maid," said Elizabeth. "I can cook, and I like to."
Miss Tripp whirled about and caught the girl in her arms with an amused laugh. "You dear, romantic child!" she cried. "Did it have the prettiest dreams about love in a cottage, and the young wife with her sleeves rolled up cooking delicious impossibilities for a doting husband? That's all very well, my dear ”

“ My dear! Mrs. Van Duser is said to be worth millions, and what is more, and far, far better, she moves in the most exclusive society. You dear, lucky girl, I congratulate you upon the recognition you have received. Tear it up—indeed, you will do nothing of the sort! I'll put it here right by this cut-glass vase, where every one will see it." [Pg 70]
Elizabeth pouted. "Mother didn't like it," she said, "and grandma laughed over it, and Sam told me to forget it; I don't see why you——"
"Because I know," intoned Miss Tripp solemnly. ”

“ Elliot has such magnificent muscles he can do anything, and better than any one else, and that's why he's on the varsity, you see!"
"Thank you, Elizabeth," said grandma tranquilly. "I'd entirely forgotten that young men don't go to college now to study their lessons. My memory is certainly getting poor."
"No, grandma dear; it isn't. You remember everything a thousand times better than any one else, and what is more, you know it. But of course Elliot studies; he has to. Mr. Brewster says he thinks Elliot is one of the finest [Pg 12] boys he knows. He thinks he would make a splendid engineer. ”

“ After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing—for the first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum. There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for what Sam called "contingencies." This would include, of course, the fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival of every cheque. ”

“ But I could tell you things about some of my married friends that would— Well, all I have to say is that I never dared try it—matrimony, I mean—and if I were in your place— But there! I mustn't meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends too fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which might so easily have been avoided. ”

“ But when it comes to affording, I think you can scarcely afford to waste your good looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only too easy to lose it all, and then—" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable Elizabeth to vague alarms.
"I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, [Pg 89] "that Sam would like me just as well even if I——"
"Of course you think so, dear, every woman does till it is too late," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. ”

“ Miss Tripp smiled winningly upon the exasperated old lady. "Nothing is too good for dear Elizabeth now," she murmured, "and you know, dear Mrs. Carroll, that a number of Boston people will be here—Mrs. Van Duser, we hope, and—others."
Grandma Carroll fixed piercing eyes upon the indefatigable Evelyn. "Of course you mean well," she said crisply; "but if I was you I'd take a rest; I'm afraid you're getting all tuckered out doing so much. And considering that you ain't any relation I guess I'd let Lizzie's own folks 'tend to the wedding from now on." ”

“ She leaned forward and touched the cold smooth surface with her lips in a sudden passion of gratitude for the fair, richly tinted skin, the large bright eyes with their long curling lashes, the masses of brown waving hair, and the pliant beauty of the strong young figure in the mirror.
"If I had been freckled and stoop-shouldered [Pg 6] and awkward, like Louise Glenny, he couldn't have loved me," she was thinking. ”

“ It is so important to begin right; and you know, my dear, you couldn't expect any one to come to see you in South Boston."
Mrs. Carroll, who chanced to be present, was observed to compress her lips firmly. "Lizzie," she said, when the fashionable Miss Tripp had finally taken her departure, after much voluble advice on the subject of the going-away gown, coupled with a spirited discussion of the rival merits of a church wedding and "just a pretty, simple home affair," "if I were you I shouldn't let that Evelina Kipp decide everything for me. ”

“ Boston's no different from any other town," put in the doctor. "You tell Bess I said so. She doesn't need to worry about Boston!" He plumped down in his office chair and began an indignant protest addressed to the firm of Avery & Co., Wholesale Druggists and Dealers in Surgical Supplies.
"I haven't bought any of her best dresses yet," sighed Mrs. North; "and she wants an all-over lace for her wedding dress. Miss Tripp says they're very much worn now." ”

“ That girl is carrying things out of your kitchen as fast as the grocer and the butcher can bring them in; I don't think you can afford to let her spend your husband's money as she pleases, and that is what it amounts to the way you're managing now."
"But grandma," protested Elizabeth, "Sam looks over every one of the bills himself before he pays them."
"It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own too, my dear."
Elizabeth hung her head, her face flaming with angry colour.
"You've been brought up to be a sensible, industrious, economical woman," pursued Mrs. Carroll earnestly ”

“ She doesn't expect to be paid promptly. Really, I don't believe she would have a particle of respect for a patron who insisted upon paying for a gown the minute it was finished. First-class modistes and milliners, too, are all that way; they know better than to send their bills too soon. So that needn't bother you, dear; and of course Pryse finds everything, which will save enormously on your outlay."
Elizabeth felt very meek and hopelessly countrified as she laid off her wraps in Miss Tripp's rather stuffy but ornate little apartment. ”

“ Grandma Carroll wanted to know, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd better do your shopping with your mother, Lizzie; her judgment would likely be quite as good as that Tipp girl's, and more in a line with what you can afford. You should remember that Samuel isn't a rich man, and you'll need good, substantial dresses that'll last. ”

“ I can't stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day."
"I should think not!" returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. "We should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to [Pg 94] me for only two in the family." Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way; she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile.
"I never work for a family where there is more than two," said Miss McMurtry pointedly. ”

“ Sam Brewster himself might have told you—as he told his married sister living in Saginaw, Mich., and anxiously solicitous of the young man's general well-being—that he meant that sort and quality of affection which would naturally and inevitably lead a man into matrimony. He had always been fond of the society of pretty and amiable women, and well used to it, too. ”

“ I remember I had a blue Russell-cord poplin when I was married that I wore for fifteen years; then I made it over for your mother, and she looked as pretty as a pink in it for two more; then she outgrew it and I gave it away; but the cloth in it was as good as new. A dress like that pays!"
Elizabeth laughed somewhat impatiently. "I've heard about that wonderful poplin ever since I can remember," she said. ”