about any of them. Pauline, do sit still if you kin. You fidget me. I notice you ain’t asking how I got along. But I s’pose I couldn’t expect it.”
“I can tell how you got along without asking, Ma … you look so bright and cheerful.” Pauline was still so uplifted by the day that she could be a little arch even with her mother. “I’m sure you and Miss Shirley had a nice time together.”
“We got on well enough. I just let her have her own way. I admit it’s the first time in years I’ve heard some interesting conversation. I ain’t so near the grave as some people would like to make out. Thank heaven I’ve never got deaf or childish. Well, I s’pose the next thing you’ll be off to the moon. And I s’pose they didn’t care for my sarsaparilla wine by any chance?”
“Oh, they did. They thought it delicious.”
“You’ve taken your own time telling me that. Did you bring back the bottle … or would it be too much to expect you’d remember that?”
“The … the bottle got broke,” faltered Pauline. “Some one knocked it over in the pantry. But Louisa gave me another just exactly the same, Ma, so you needn’t worry.”
“I’ve had that bottle ever since I started housekeeping. Louisa’s can’t be exactly the same. They don’t make such bottles nowadays. I wish you’d bring me another shawl. I’m sneezing … I expect I’ve got a terrible cold. You can’t either of you seem to remember not to let the night air git at me. Likely it’ll bring my neuritis back.”
An old neighbor up the street dropped in at this Juncture and Pauline snatched at the chance to go a little way with Anne.
“Good night, Miss Shirley,” said Mrs. Gibson quite graciously. “I’m much obliged to you. If there was more people like you in this town, it would be the better for it.” She grinned toothlessly and pulled Anne down to her. “I don’t care what people say … I think you’re real nicelooking,” she whispered.
Pauline and Anne walked along the street, through the cool, green night, and Pauline let herself go, as she had not dared do before her mother.
“Oh, Miss Shirley, it was heavenly. How can I ever repay you? I’ve never spent such a wonderful day … I’ll live on it for years. It was such fun being a bridesmaid again. And Captain Isaac Kent was groomsman. He … he used to be an old beau of mine … well, no, hardly a beau … . I don’t think he ever had any real intentions but we drove round together … and he paid me two compliments. He said, ‘I remember how pretty you looked at Louisa’s wedding in that wine-colored dress.’ Wasn’t it wonderful his remembering the dress? And he said, ‘Your hair looks just as much like molasses taffy as it ever did.’ There wasn’t anything improper in his saying that, was there, Miss Shirley?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Lou and Molly and I had such a nice supper together after everybody had gone. I was so hungry … I don’t think I’ve been so hungry for years. It was so nice to eat just what I wanted and nobody to warn me about things that wouldn’t agree with my stomach. After supper Mary and I went over to her old home and wandered around the garden, talking over old times. We saw the lilac bushes we planted years ago. We had some beautiful summers together when we were girls. Then when it came sunset we went down to the dear old shore and sat there on a rock in silence. There was a bell ringing down at the harbor and it was lovely to feel the wind from the sea again and see the stars trembling in the water. I had forgotten night on the gulf could be so beautiful. When it got quite dark we went back and Mr. Gregor was ready to start … and so,” concluded Pauline with a laugh, “The Old Woman Got Home That Night.”
“I wish … I wish you didn’t have such a hard time at home, Pauline… .”
“Oh, dear Miss Shirley, I won’t mind it now,” said Pauline quickly. “After all, poor Ma needs me. And it’s nice to be needed, my dear.”
Yes, it was nice to be needed. Anne thought of this in her tower room, where Dusty Miller, having evaded both Rebecca Dew and the widows, was curled up on her bed. She thought of Pauline trotting back to her bondage but companied by “the immortal spirit of one happy day.”
“I hope some one will always need me,” said Anne to Dusty Miller. “And it’s wonderful, Dusty Miller, to be able to give happiness to somebody. It has made me feel so rich, giving Pauline this day. But, oh, Dusty Miller, you don’t think I’ll ever be like Mrs. Adoniram Gibson, even if I live to be eighty? Do you, Dusty Miller?”
Dusty Miller, with rich, throaty purrs, assured her he didn’t.
Chapter XV
Anne went down to Bonnyview on the Friday night before the wedding. The Nelsons were giving a dinner for some family friends and wedding-guests arriving by the boat train. The big, rambling house which was Dr. Nelson’s “summer home” was built among spruces on a long point with the bay on both sides and a stretch of golden-breasted dunes beyond that knew all there was to be known about winds.
Anne liked it the moment she saw it. An old stone house always looks reposeful and dignified. It fears not what rain or wind or changing fashion can do. And on this June evening it was bubbling over with young life and excitement, the laughter of girls, the greetings of old friends, buggies coming and going, children running everywhere, gifts arriving, every one in the delightful turmoil of a wedding, while Dr. Nelson’s two black cats, who rejoiced in the names of Barnabas and Saul, sat on the railing of the veranda and watched everything like two imperturbable sable sphinxes.
Sally detached herself from a mob and whisked Anne upstairs.
“We’ve saved the north gable room for you. Of course you’ll have to share it with at least three others. There’s a perfect riot here. Father’s having a tent put up for the boys down among the spruces and later on we can have cots in the glassed-in porch at the back. And we can pack most of the children in the hayloft of course. Oh, Anne, I’m so excited. It’s really no end of fun getting married. My wedding-dress just came from Montreal today. It’s a dream … cream corded silk with a lace bertha and pearl embroidery. The loveliest gifts have come. This is your bed. Mamie Gray and Dot Fraser and Sis Palmer have the others. Mother wanted to put Amy Stewart here but I wouldn’t let her. Amy hates you because she wanted to be my bridesmaid. But I couldn’t have any one so fat and dumpy, could I now? Besides, she looks like somebody seasick in Nile green. Oh, Anne, Aunt Mouser is here. She came just a few minutes ago and we’re simply horror-stricken. Of course we had to invite her, but we never thought of her coming before tomorrow.”
“Who in the world is Aunt Mouser?”
“Dad’s aunt, Mrs. James Kennedy. Oh, of course she’s really Aunt Grace, but Tommy nicknamed her Aunt Mouser because she’s always mousing round pouncing on things we don’t want her to find out. There’s no escaping her. She even gets up early in the morning for fear of missing something and she’s the last to go to bed at night. But that isn’t the worst. If there’s a wrong thing to say she’s certain to say it and she’s never learned that there are questions that mustn’t be asked. Dad calls her speeches ‘Aunt Mouser’s felicities.’ I know she’ll spoil the dinner. Here she comes now.”
The door opened and Aunt Mouser came in … a fat, brown, pop-eyed little woman, moving in an atmosphere of mothballs and wearing a chronically worried expression.
