MARTHA FINLEY Ultimate Collection – Timeless Children Classics & Other Novels. Finley Martha
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 shining 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 shine 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 spacious 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 shining 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 passed 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 passing into the boudoir, where the groom and his attendants were already assembled, the tirewomen vanishing by a door on the opposite side.
"My darling!" murmured the father, in low, half tremulous accents, putting his arm about the slender waist, "my beautiful darling! how can I give you to another?" and again and again his lips were pressed to hers in long, passionate kisses.
"Papa, please don't make me cry," she pleaded, the soft eyes lifted to his, filled almost to overflowing.
"No, no, I must not," he said, hastily taking out his handkerchief and wiping away the tears before they fell. "It is shamefully selfish in me to come and disturb your mind thus just now."
"No, papa, no, no; I will not have you say that. Thank you for coming. It would have hurt me had you stayed away. But you would not have things different now if you could? have no desire to."
"No, daughter, no; yet, unreasonable as it is, the thought will come, bringing sadness with it, that to-night you resign my name, and my house ceases to be your only home."
"Papa, I shall never resign the name dear to me because inherited from you: I shall only add to it; your house shall always be one of my dear homes, and I shall be your own, own daughter, your own child, as truly as I ever have been. Is it not so?"
"Yes, yes, my precious little comforter."
"And you are not going to give me away—ah, papa, I could never bear that any more than you; you are taking a partner in the concern," she added with playful tenderness, smiling archly through gathering tears.
Again he wiped them hastily away. "Did ever father have such a dear daughter?" he said, gazing fondly down into the sweet face. "I ought to be the happiest of men. I believe I am——"
"Except one," exclaimed a joyous voice, at sound of which Elsie's eyes brightened and the color deepened on her cheek. "May I come in?"
"Yes, Travilla," said Mr. Dinsmore; "you have now an equal right with me."
Travilla thought his was superior, or would be after the ceremony, but generously refrained from saying so. And had Mr. Dinsmore been questioned on the subject, he could not have asserted that it had ever occurred to him that Mr. Allison had an equal right with himself in Rose. But few people are entirely consistent.
Mr. Travilla drew near the two, still standing together, and regarded his bride with a countenance beaming with love and delight. The sweet eyes sought his questioningly, and meeting his ardent gaze the beautiful face sparkled all over with smiles and blushes.
"Does my toilet please you, my friend?" she asked. "And you, papa?"
"The general effect is charming," said Mr. Travilla; "but," he added, in low, tender tones saying far more than the words, "I've been able to see nothing else for the dear face that is always that to me."
"I can see no flaw in face or attire," Mr. Dinsmore said, taking a more critical survey; "you are altogether pleasing in your doting father's eyes, my darling. But you must not stand any longer. You will need all your strength for your journey." And he would have led her to a sofa.
But she gently declined. "Ah, I am much too fine to sit down just now, my dear, kind father, I should crush my lace badly. So please let me stand. I am not conscious of weariness."
He yielded, saying with a smile, "That would be a pity; for it is very beautiful. And surely you ought to be allowed your own way to-night if ever."
"To-night and ever after," whispered the happy