The Other GirlsWhitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
General
The Other Girls
Whitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
Family life -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
"That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There isn't
half as much left for us to manage as we think," said Desire,
putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle Titus's will which they
had been reading over together. "He knew the executorship into
which he gave it."
Shall I stop here with them until the Easter tide, and finish
telling you how it all was?
There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox and the
Schermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than that,--in those few
pleasant days when March was beguiling us to believe in the more
engaging of his double moods, and in the possibility of his behaving
sweetly at the end, and going out after all like a lamb.
We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would like to hear
about the wedding.
Does it never occur to you that this "going back and living up" in a
story-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid by in the
divine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry away from, and
miss of, now? It does to me. I know that _That_ can manage at least
as well as mine can.
* * * * *
Christopher Kirkbright and Desire Ledwith were married in the
library, where they had betrothed themselves; where Desire had felt
all the sacredness of her life laid upon her; where she took up now
another trust, that was only an outgrowth and expansion of the
first, and for which she laid down nothing of its spirit and intent.
Mrs. Ledwith and the sisters--Mrs. Megilp and Glossy--were there, of
course.
Mrs. Megilp had said over to herself little imaginary speeches about
the homestead and old associations, and "Daisy's great love and
reverence for all that touched the memory of her uncle, to whom she
certainly owed everything;" about the journey to New York, and the
few days they had to give there to Mr. Oldway's life-long friend
and Desire's adviser, Mr. Marmaduke Wharne ("_Sir_ Marmaduke he
would be, everybody knew, if he had chosen to claim the English
title that belonged to him"),--who was too infirm to come on to the
wedding; and the necessity there was for them to go as fast as
possible to their estate in the country,--Hill-hope,--where Mr.
Kirkbright was building "mills and a village and a perfect castle of
a house, and a private railroad and heaven knows what,"--all this to
account, indirectly, for the quiet little ordinary ceremony, which
of course would otherwise have been at the Church of the Holy
Commandments; or at least up-stairs in the long, stately old
drawing-room which was hardly ever used.
But none of the people were there to whom any such little speeches
had to be made; nobody who needed any accounting to for its oddity
was present at Desire Ledwith's wedding.
Mr. Vireo officiated; there was something in his method and manner
which Mrs. Megilp decidedly objected to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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