"It's nothing, Aunt Isabelle." Mary's tone was not loud, but Aunt
Isabelle heard and nodded.
"She's dead tired, poor dear, and wrought up. I'll run and get the
aromatic spirits."
With Aunt Isabella out of the way, Mary set herself to repair the damage
she had done. "I've made you cry on your wedding day, Con, and I wanted
you to be so happy. Oh, tell Gordon, if you must. But you'll find that
he won't look at it as you and I have looked at it. He won't make the
excuses."
"Oh, yes he will." Constance's happiness seemed to come back to her
suddenly in a flood of assurance. "He's the best man in the world, Mary,
and so kind. It's because you don't know him that you think as you do."
Mary could not quench the trust in the blue eyes. "Of course he's good,"
she said, "and you are going to be the happiest ever, Constance."
Then Aunt Isabelle came back and found that the need for the aromatic
spirits was over, and together the loving hands hurried Constance into
her going away gown of dull blue and silver, with its sable trimmed wrap
and hat.
"If it hadn't been for Aunt Frances, how could I have faced Gordon's
friends in London?" said Constance. "Am I all right now, Mary?"
"Lovely, Con, dear."
But it was Aunt Isabelle's hushed voice which gave the appropriate
phrase. "She looks like a bluebird--for happiness."
At the foot of the stairway Gordon was waiting for his bride--handsome
and prosperous as a bridegroom should be, with a dark sleek head and
eager eyes, and beside him Porter Bigelow, topping him by a head, and a
red head at that.
As Mary followed Constance, Porter tucked her hand under his arm.
"Oh, Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
Your eyes they are so bright,
That the stars grow pale, as they tell the tale
To the other stars at night," he improvised under his breath. "Oh, Mary Ballard, do you know that I am
holding on to myself with all my might to keep from shouting to the
crowd, 'Mary isn't going away. Mary isn't going away.'"
"Silly----"
"You say that, but you don't mean it. Mary, you can't be hard-hearted on
such a night as this. Say that I may stay for five minutes--ten--after
the others have gone----"
They were out on the porch now, and he had folded about her the wrap
which she had brought down with her. "Of course you may stay," she said,
"but much good may it do you. Aunt Frances is staying and General
Dick--there's to be a family conclave in the Sanctum--but if you want to
listen you may."