"I will tell you what," said Grace; "I will get as near her to-morrow as
I can, and will try to coax her, hire her--if needs be--to accompany us
to England."
"A capital thought, my wise little wife!" said Sedgwick. "Then when you
gain her confidence, if you think it best, we will try and help her find
the great-hearted man."
"I believe you are an angel," said Grace.
"I know you are," said Sedgwick, and involuntarily they kissed each
other.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BACK TO ENGLAND.
Before the Sedgwicks left Indianapolis, Grace found her opportunity and
said: "Mrs. Hazleton, soon after we reach England my husband will go away
for four or five months. I shall be awfully lonesome. You have never been
across the sea. Take pity upon me and be my guest for a few months until
you weary of me."
The lady was startled by the proposition, waited a moment, and then said:
"I do not know how to thank you, but I came here to teach music. I have
several pupils, and have a contract to sing in the choir of one of the
churches. I need the little revenue that I receive, but if I could get
released from my obligations I would most gladly go, for I do covet a
change exceedingly."
"Then," said Grace, "if I can get that release, and will pay you as much
as you receive here, and all your expenses out and back, will you go?"
"Indeed, I will," she answered, "and will be grateful to you all my
life."
The arrangement was easily made, and the further arrangement that
Sedgwick and his bride should go to Ohio, visit Sedgwick's family for
three or four days; then should join the Forbeses and Mrs. Hazleton at a
certain hotel in New York, and all would embark on the steamer that would
sail on the next week Saturday--ten days from that day.
Then Sedgwick and Grace started for the Miami Valley.
What a welcome was there! The old house had been repaired, modernized,
refurnished and repainted. A new house had been built on the other farm.
It was in the first days of February. That year there was good sleighing,
and the whole town seemed to turn out to celebrate the occasion of Jim
Sedgwick's bringing home his bride. Four days passed in a whirl of
pleasure. The first morning after their arrival, Sedgwick asked his
brother for his trotting team, his new cutter, and the bells, to give
Grace her first sleigh-ride. The steppers were of the 2:30 class, the
roads good, and the fair English girl-wife was in ecstacies. They drove
past the Jasper farm on the hill, and Sedgwick told Grace that it was his
dream for years to accumulate $30,000 to release the mortgage from his
father's farm and to buy the Jasper farm.
"Then what would I have done?" asked Grace.
"Married some English banker, or may be some 'My Lord Fitzdoodle,'
probably," said Sedgwick.
"But, then, suppose a year later I had seen you, what would become of
me?" she said.
"We should have been very formal and polite, and then have gone our
several ways," said Sedgwick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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