From his pocket he drew out a little package, and dangled a sparkling
jewel in his hands. He saw a flash of pleasure on her face. But his
heart was full, and he turned away his head as he handed the gift to
her. Her eyes were upon the sparkling jewel, as he led her into the
house, saying with a great sigh: "Come on, my dear--let's go in."
At nine o'clock that night, the great foundry of a house, with its half
a score of chimneys, marking its various epochs of growth, literally was
stuffed with smilax, ferns, roses, orange blossoms, and daisy chains. In
the mazes of these aisles of verdure, a labyrinth of Van Dorns and
Satterthwaites and visiting statesmen with highly powdered womankind was
packed securely. George Brotherton, who was born a drum major, wearing
all of his glittering insignia of a long line of secret societies, moved
as though the welding humanity were fluid. He had presided at too many
funerals not to know the vast importance of keeping the bride's kin from
the groom's kin, and when he saw that they were ushered into the wedding
supper, in due form and order, it was with the fine abandon of a grand
duke lording it over the populace. Senators, Supreme Court justices,
proud Satterthwaites, haughty Van Dorns, Congressmen, governors, local
gentry, were packed neatly but firmly in their proper boxes.
The old families of Harvey--Captain Morton and his little flock, the
Kollanders, Ahab Wright with his flaring side-whiskers, his white
necktie and his shadow of a wife; Joseph Calvin and his daughter in
pigtails, Mrs. Calvin having written Mrs. Nesbit that it seemed that she
just never did get to go anywhere and be anybody, having said as much
and more to Mr. Calvin with emphasis; Mrs. Brotherton, mother of George,
beaming with pride at her son's part; stuttering Kyle Perry and his
hatchet-faced son, the Adamses all starched for the occasion, Daniel
Sands, a widower pro tem. with a broadening interest in school teachers,
Mrs. Herdicker, the ladies' hatter, classifying the Satterthwaites and
the Van Dorns according to the millinery of their womenkind; Morty Sands
wearing the first white silk vest exhibited in Harvey and making violent
eyes at a daughter of the railroad aristocracy--either a general
manager's daughter or a general superintendent's, and for the life of
her Mrs. Nesbit couldn't say; for she had not the highest opinion in the
world of the railroad aristocracy, but took them, president, first,
second and third vice, general managers, ticket and passenger agents,
and superintendents, as a sort of social job-lot because they came in
private cars, and the Doctor desired them, to add to his trophies of the
occasion,--Henry Fenn, wearing soberly the suit in which he appeared
when he rode the skyrocket, and forming part of the bridal chorus,
stationed in the cigar-box of a sewing-room on the second floor to sing,
"Oh, Day So Dear," as the happy couple came down the stairs--the old
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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