The big box had followed--how _dear_ Daddy had always been--but had she
ever wanted to eat like that?
There were letters which her father had written, pasted in, envelopes
and all, to be read in certain longing moments when she had missed him
and her mother. There were love letters from certain callow college
boys--_love_--! She laughed now as she thought of the pale passion
they had offered her.
Derry had had no word for her the night before when he had left her at
her door. Her father had been with her, so Derry could only press her
hand and watch her as she went in. But there had been no need for
words. All the evening what they had felt had flamed between them--.
So with the desire to preserve a record of these marvellous moments
which were crowding into her life, she chose a perfectly new book to be
devoted to Derry. And on the first page she pasted, not the faded
violet from the basket which had come to her yesterday--oh, day of
days!--not the dance program on which Derry's name was most magically
scrawled, nor the spring of heather, nor a handful of rose leaves from
the offering of the morning--no, the very first thing that went into
Jean's memory book was a frayed silken tassel that had been cut from a
rose-colored curtain! She had carried down her little scissors the
night before, and had snipped it, and here it was--an omen for her own
rose-colored future!
Starry-eyed she lay back among her pillows.
"Oh, Polly-Ann, Polly-Ann," she said tensely, to the small cat on the
cushions, "if I should ever wake up and find that it wasn't true--"
Polly-Ann stared at her with mystical green orbs. She could offer no
help, but she served as a peg upon which Jean could hang her eloquence.
She stretched herself luxuriously and purred.
"But it is true, Polly-Ann," Jean said, "and I am going to church with
him--wasn't it beautiful that he should think of going to church with
me on Thanksgiving morning, Polly-Ann?"
She dressed herself presently, making a sort of sacred rite of
it--because of Derry. She was glad that she was pretty--because of
Derry. Glad that her gray fur coat was becoming--glad of the red rose
against it.
He came in his car, but they decided to walk.
"I always walk to church," said Jean.
"There's sleet falling," said Derry.
"I don't care," said Jean.
"Nor I," said Derry.
And so they started out together!
It was a dismal day, but they did not know it. They knelt together in
the old church. They prayed together. And when at last the
benediction had been said and they stood together for a moment alone in
the pew, Derry looked down at her and said, "Beloved," and the morning
stars sang--!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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