  On Thanksgiving afternoon Robert again said, “Nan, comrade, can’t we be married tomorrow out under our very own pepper tree.” “Son,” Mrs. Widdemere smilingly protested, “what an uncivilized suggestion for you to make.” “That’s the very reason why I wish it,” the lad replied. “Five years ago Nan and I met out under that tree and we both declared that we wanted to be uncivilized. I remember that I was pining to be a wild Indian or a pirate, but instead, we have both spent the intervening years in polishing our manners and intellects.” Then turning to the girl, he pleaded, “Lady Red Bird, let me have my own way just this once, and then you may have your own way forever after.” Nan laughed happily. “But Robert,” she said, “ought there not to be a trousseau before one is married?” “Elenan.” It was Monsieur Alecsandri who was speaking. “I was so confident I would find you, that I brought a trunk full of garments that were your dear mother’s. It was the trousseau which I had provided for her when I betrothed her to a descendant of Prince Couza. The gowns are the loveliest that I could procure, but they were never worn.” “Oh, Uncle Basil.” (He had asked the girl to call him by his Christian name.) “How glad I shall be to have them.” “But, Nan comrade,” Robert repeated, “you have not yet said that I may plan our wedding and our trip away.” The girl looked at the lad who was seated on the lounge at her side and said brightly, “Robert, you plan it all and let it be a surprise for me.” Nan noticed that during the hour that followed Robert glanced at his watch and several times walked toward the window and gazed out toward the highway. “Why are you so restless, son?” his mother had just inquired, when wheels were heard in the drive, and soon after the call of the heavy iron knocker resounded through the house. Robert half arose, but sank back to the lounge when he saw Mrs. Sperry going to the front door. “Who can it be?” Little Miss Dahlia was quite in a flutter, but Nan had heard a voice inquiring if Miss Anne Barrington was at home? With a cry of joy Nan sprang forward and held the newcomer in a long and loving embrace. “Phyllis, I can’t believe that it is you!” she cried as she stood back to survey the pretty, laughing face of her dearest friend. “Why, it seems too much like a story book to be really true.” Then she led the newcomer into the library where she was gladly welcomed by all who knew her and introduced by Nan to “my uncle, Monsieur Alecsandri.” Phyllis, who never had believed that her room-mate was really a gypsy, took the arrival of an aristocratic uncle quite as a matter of course, and when they were all seated, Nan, still curious, exclaimed: “Do tell me how you happened to know that it was time to come to my wedding.” Phyllis looked up at Robert with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes. “Shall I tell?” she asked. “I’ll tell,” that lad replied. “Last week I wired my fair cousin to board a train at once for the West if she wished to attend our wedding which I hoped would be solemnized on Thanksgiving day.” “Robert! How could you invite a guest to our wedding before you had asked me to marry you?” Nan laughingly declared. “It was rather presumptuous,” the lad confessed, “but all’s well that ends well.” Monsieur Alecsandri accepted Miss Barrington’s invitation to remain in her home, and Phyllis spent the night with Nan, for they had much to talk about. The latter maiden often fell to wondering what Robert’s surprising plan was for their wedding. |
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