In the High Valley Part 18

"Johnnie wrote that you were to go."

"It was such a bright week! Boston was beautiful, as it always is in spring, with the Public Garden a blaze of flowers, and all the pretty country about so green and sweet! Rose was most delightful; and I saw ever so many of the old Hillsover girls, and even had a glimpse of Mrs.

Nipson!"

"That must have been rather a bad joy."

"N--o, not exactly. I was rather glad, on the whole, to meet her again.

She isn't as bad as we made her out. School-girls are almost always unjust to their teachers."

"Oh, come, now," said Clover, making a little face. "This is a happy occasion, certainly, and I am in a benignant frame of mind, but really I can't stand having you so horridly charitable. 'There is no virtue, madam, in a mush of concession.' Mrs. Nipson was an unpleasant old thing,--so there! Let us talk of something else. Tell me about your visit to Cousin Helen."

"Oh, that was a sweet visit all through. I stayed ten days, and she was better than usual, it seemed to me. Did I write about little Helen's ball?"

"No."

"She is just nineteen, and it was her first dance. Such a pretty creature, and so pleased and excited about it! and Cousin Helen was equally so. She gave Helen her dress complete, down to the satin shoes, and the fan and the long gloves, and a turquoise necklace, and turquoise pins for her hair. You never saw anything so charming as the way in which she enjoyed it. You would have supposed that Helen was her own child, as she lay on the sofa, with such bright beaming eyes, while the pretty thing turned round and round to exhibit her finery."

"There certainly never was any one like Cousin Helen. She is embodied sympathy," said Clover. "Now, Katy, I want you to look. We are just turning into our own road."

It was a radiant afternoon, with long, soft shadows alternating with golden suns.h.i.+ne, and the High Valley was at its very best as they slowly climbed the zigzag pa.s.s. With every turn and winding Katy's pleasure grew; and when they rounded the last curve, and came in sight of the little group of buildings, with their picturesque background of forest and the splendid peak soaring above, she exclaimed with delight:--

"What a perfect situation! Clover, you never said enough about it!

Surely the half was not told me, as the Queen of Sheba remarked! Oh, and there is Elsie on the porch, and that thing in white beside her is Phillida! I never dreamed she could be so large! How glad I am that I didn't die of measles when I was little, as dear Rose Red used to say."

Katy's coming was the crowning pleasure of the occasion to all, but most of all to Clover. To have her most intimate sister in her own home, and be able to see her every day and all day long, and consult and advise and lay before her the hopes and intentions and desires of her heart, which she could never so fully share with any one else, except Geoff, was a delight which never lost its zest, and of which Clover never grew weary.

To settle Dr. Carr in his new quarters was another pleasure, in which they all took equal part. When his books and microscopes were unpacked, and the Burnet belongings arranged pretty much in their old order, the rooms looked wonderfully homelike, even to him. The children soon learned to adore him, as children always had done; the only trouble was that they fought for the possession of his knee, and would never willingly have left him a moment for himself. His leisure had to be protected by a series of nursery laws and penances, or he would never have had any; but he said he liked the children better than the leisure.

He was born to be a grandfather; n.o.body told stories like him, or knew so well how to please and pacify and hit the taste of little people.

But all this, of course, came subsequently to the double wedding, which took place two days after the arrival of the home-party. The morning of the twentieth was unusually fine, even for Colorado,--fair, cloudless, and golden bright, as if ordered for the occasion,--without a cloud on the sky from dawn to sunset. The ceremony was performed by a clergyman from Portland, who with his invalid wife were settled in the Hutlet for the summer, very glad of the pleasant little home offered them, and to escape from the crowd and confusion of Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house, where Geoff had found them. Two or three particular friends drove out from St. Helen's; but with that exception the whole wedding was "valley-made," as Elsie declared, including delicious raspberry ice-cream, and an enormous cake, over which she and Clover had expended much time and thought, and which, decorated with emblematical designs in icing and wreathed with yucca-blossoms, stood in the middle of the table.

The ceremony took place at noon precisely, when, as Phil facetiously observed, "the shadows of the high contracting parties could never be less." There was little that was formal about it, but much that was reverent and sweet and full of true feeling. Imogen and Johnnie had both agreed to wear white muslin dresses, very much such dresses as they were all accustomed to wear on afternoons; but Imogen had on her head her mother's wedding-veil, which had been sent out from England, and John wore Katy's, "for luck," as she said. Both carried a big bouquet of Mariposa lilies, and the house was filled with the characteristic wild-flowers of the region most skilfully and effectively grouped and arranged.

A hospitably hearty luncheon followed the ceremony, of which all partook; then Imogen went away to put on her pretty travelling-suit of pale brown, and the carry-all came round to take Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Carr to St. Helen's, which was the first stage on their journey of life.

The whole party stood on the porch to see them go. Imogen's last word and embrace were for Clover.

"We are sisters now," she whispered. "I belong to you just as much as Isabel does, and I am so glad that I do! Dear Clover, you have been more good to me than I can say, and I shall never forget it."

"Nonsense about being good! You are my Dorry's wife now, and our own dear sister. There is no question about goodness,--only to love one another."

She kissed Imogen warmly, and helped her into the carriage. Dorry sprang after her; the wheels revolved; and Phil, seizing a horseshoe which hung ready to hand on the wall of the house, flung it after the departing vehicle.

"It's more appropriate than any other sort of old shoe for this Place of Hoofs," he observed. "Well, the Carr family are certainly pretty well disposed of now. I am 'the last ungathered rose on my ancestral tree.' I wonder who will tear me from my stem!"

"You can afford to hang on a while longer," remarked Elsie. "I don't consider you fairly expanded yet, by any means. You'll be twice as well worth gathering a few years from now."

"Oh, very fine!--years indeed! Why, I shall be a seedy old bachelor!

That would never do! And Amy Ashe, whom I have had in my eye ever since she was in pinafores, will be married to some other fellow!"

"Don't set your heart on Amy," said Katy. "She's not seventeen yet; and I don't think her mother has any idea of having her made into Ashes of Roses so early!"

"There's no harm in having a girl in one's eye," retorted Phil, disconsolately. "I declare, you all look so contented and so satisfied with yourselves and one another, that it's enough to madden a fellow, left out, as I am, in the cold! I shall go back to St. Helen's with Dr.

and Mrs. Hope."

The others, left to themselves in their happy loneliness, gathered together in the big room after the last guest had gone. Geoff touched a match to the ready-laid fire; Clover wheeled an armchair forward for her father, and sat down beside him with her arm on his knee; John and Lionel took possession of a big sofa.

"Now let us enjoy ourselves," said Clover. "The world is shut out, we are shut in; there are none to molest and make us afraid; and, please Heaven, there is a whole, long, happy year before us! I never did suppose anything so perfectly perfect could happen to us all as this.

Now, papa,--dear papa,--just say that you like it as much as we all do."

Elsie perched herself on the arm of her father's chair; Katy stood behind, stroking his hair. Dr. Carr held out his hand to Johnnie, who ran across the room, knelt down, caught it in both hers, and fondly laid her cheek upon it.

"I like it _quite_ as much as you do," he said. "Where my girls are is the place for me; and I am going to be the most contented old gentleman in America for the rest of my days."

THE END

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