Elsie's Womanhood Part 19

"You dearest girl, you have only changed by growing more beautiful than ever," cried Lottie, squeezing Elsie's hand which she still held, and gazing admiringly into her face.

Elsie laughed low and musically.

"Precisely what I was thinking of you, Lottie. It must be your own fault that you are still single. But we won't waste time in flattering each other, when we have so much to say that is better worth while."

"No, surely; Aunt Wealthy has told me of your engagement."

"That was right; it is no secret, and should not be from you if it were from others. Lottie, I want you to be one of my bridesmaids. We're going to carry Aunt Wealthy off to spend the winter with us, and I shall not be content unless I can do the same by you.'

"A winter in the 'sunny South!' and with you; how delightful! you dear, kind creature, to think of it, and to ask me. Ah, if I only could!"

"I think you can; though of course I know your father and mother must be consulted; and if you come, you will grant my request?"

"Yes, yes indeed! gladly."

Aunt Chloe, always making herself useful wherever she went, was pa.s.sing around the room with a pile of plates, Phillis following with cakes and confections, while Simon brought in a waiter with saucers and spoons, and two large moulds of ice cream.

"Will you help the cream, Harry?" said Miss Stanhope. "There are two kinds, you see, travilla and melon. Ask Mrs. Vanilla which she'll have; or if she'll take both."

"Mrs. Travilla, may I have the pleasure of helping you to ice cream?" he asked. "There are two kinds, vanilla and lemon. Let me give you both."

"If you please," she answered, with a slightly amused look; for though Aunt Wealthy had spoken in an undertone, the words had reached her ear.

"Which will you have, dearies?" said the old lady, drawing near the young girls' corner, "travilla cream or melon?"

"Lemon for me, if you please, Aunt Wealthy," replied Lottie.

"And I will take Travilla," Elsie said, low and mischievously, and with a merry twinkle in her eye.

"But you have no cake! your plate is quite empty and useless," exclaimed the aunt. "Horace," turning towards her nephew, who was chatting with the doctor at the other side of the room, "some of this cake is very plain; you don't object to Elsie eating a little of it?"

"She is quite grown up now, aunt, and can judge for herself in such matters," he answered smiling, then turned to finish what he had been saying to the doctor.

"You will have some then, dear, won't you?" Miss Stanhope inquired in her most coaxing tone.

"A very small slice of this sponge cake, if you please, auntie."

"How young Mr. Travilla looks," remarked Lottie, "younger I think, than he did four years ago. Happiness, I presume; it's said to have that effect. I believe I was vexed when I first heard you were engaged to him, because I thought he was too old; but really he doesn't look so; a man should be considerably older than his wife, that she may find it easier to look up to him; and he know the better how to take care of her."

"I would not have him a day younger, except that he would like to be nearer my age, or different in any way from what he is," Elsie said, her eyes involuntarily turning in Mr. Travilla's direction.

They met the ardent gaze of his. Both smiled, and rising he crossed the room and joined them. They had a half hour of lively chat together, then Mrs. King rose to take leave.

Mr. Travilla moved away to speak to the doctor, and Lottie seized the opportunity to whisper to her friend, "He's just splendid, Elsie! I don't wonder you look so happy, or that he secured your hand and heart after they had been refused to dukes and lords. You see Aunt Wealthy has been telling me all about your conquests in Europe," she added, in answer to Elsie's look of surprise.

"I am, indeed, very happy, Lottie," Elsie replied in the same low tone; "I know Mr. Travilla so thoroughly, and have not more perfect confidence in papa's goodness and love to me, than in his. It is a very restful thing to have such a friend."

Dr. King's circ.u.mstances had greatly improved in the last four years, so that he was quite able to give Lottie the pleasure of accepting Elsie's invitation, and at once gave his cordial consent. Mrs. King at first objected that the two weeks of our friends' intended stay in Lansdale would not give sufficient time for the necessary additions to Lottie's wardrobe; but this difficulty was overcome by a suggestion from Elsie. She would spend two or three weeks in Philadelphia, attending to the purchasing and making up of her trousseau, she said, and Lottie's dresses could be bought and made at the same time and place.

The two weeks allotted to Lansdale of course pa.s.sed very rapidly; especially to Harry, to whom the society of these new-found relatives was a great pleasure, and who on their departure would be left behind, with only Phillis for his housekeeper.

The latter received so many charges from Aunt Wealthy in regard to careful attention to "Mr. Harry's" health and comfort, that at length she grew indignant, and protested that she loved "Mr. Harry as if he was her own child--didn't she nuss him when he was a little feller? and there was no 'casion for missus to worry an' fret as if she was leavin' him to a stranger."

It was not for want of a cordial invitation to both the Oaks and Ion that Harry was left behind; but business required his presence at home, and he could only promise himself a week's holiday at the time of the wedding.

CHAPTER TWELFTH

"Bring flowers, fresh flowers for the bride to wear; They were born to blush in her s.h.i.+ning hair; She's leaving the home of her childhood's mirth; She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth; Her place is now by another's side; Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride."

--MRS. HEMANS.

A fair October day is waning, and as the shadows deepen and the stars s.h.i.+ne out here and there in the darkening sky, the grounds at the Oaks glitter with colored lamps, swinging from the branches of the trees that shade the long green alleys, and dependent from arches wreathed with flowers. In doors and out everything wears a festive look; almost the whole house is thrown open to the guests who will presently come thronging to it from nearly every plantation for miles around.

The grand wedding has been talked of, prepared for, and looked forward to for months past, and few, if any, favored with an invitation, will willingly stay away.

The s.p.a.cious entrance hall is brilliantly lighted, and on either hand wide-open doors give admission to long suites of richly, tastefully furnished rooms, beautiful with rare statuary, paintings, articles of vertu, and flowers scattered everywhere, in bouquets, wreaths, festoons, filling the air with their delicious fragrance.

These apartments, waiting for the guests, are almost entirely deserted; but in Elsie's dressing-room a bevy of gay young girls, in white tarletan and with flowers in their elaborately dressed hair, are laughing and chatting merrily, and now and then offering a suggestion to Aunt Chloe and Dinah, whose busy hands are arranging their young mistress for her bridal.

"Lovely!" "Charming!" "Perfect!" the girls exclaim in delighted, admiring chorus, as the tirewomen having completed their labors, Elsie stands before them in a dress of the richest white satin, with an overskirt of point lace, a veil of the same, enveloping her slender figure like an airy cloud, or morning mist, reaching from the freshly gathered orange blossoms wreathed in the s.h.i.+ning hair to the tiny white satin slipper just peeping from beneath the rich folds of the dress. Flowers are her only ornament to-night, and truly she needs no other.

"Perfect! nothing superfluous, nothing wanting," says Lottie King.

Rose, looking almost like a young girl herself, so sweet and fair in her beautiful evening dress, came in at that instant to see if all was right in the bride's attire. Her eyes grew misty while she gazed, her heart swelling with a strange mixture of emotions: love, joy, pride, and a touch of sadness at the thought of the partial loss that night was to bring to her beloved husband and herself.

"Am I all right, mamma?" asked Elsie.

"I can see nothing amiss," Rose answered, with a slight tremble in her voice. "My darling, I never saw you so wondrously sweet and fair," she whispered, adjusting a fold of the drapery. "You are very happy?"

"Very, mamma dear; yet a trifle sad too. But that is a secret between you and me. How beautiful you are to-night."

"Ah, dear child, quite ready, and the loveliest bride that ever I saw, from the sole of your head to the crown of your foot," said a silvery voice, as a quaint little figure came softly in and stood at Mrs.

Dinsmore's side--"no, I mean from the crown of your foot to the sole of your head. Ah, funerals are almost as sad as weddings. I don't know how people can ever feel like dancing at them."

"Well, auntie dear, there'll be no dancing at mine," said Elsie, smiling slightly.

"I must go and be ready to receive our guests," said Rose, hearing the rumble of carriage wheels. "Elsie, dear child," she whispered, "keep calm.

You can have no doubts or fears in putting your future in----"

"No, no, mamma, not the slightest," and the fair face grew radiant.

As Rose pa.s.sed out at one door, Miss Stanhope following, with a parting injunction to the bride not to grow frightened or nervous, Mr. Dinsmore entered by another.

He stood a moment silently gazing upon his lovely daughter; then a slight motion of his hand sent all others from the room, the bridesmaids pa.s.sing into the boudoir, where the groom and his attendants were already a.s.sembled, the tirewomen vanis.h.i.+ng by a door on the opposite side.