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At nine o'clock the bride's half of the wedding-party were all safely assembled in Doctor Ianson's drawing-room, and everything promised to go off successfully to which result Emma, now all in her glory, prided herself as having been the main contributor and no doubt the kind, active, sensible little matron was right. When, lo! there came an unlucky contretemps.
Ianson's did more for the suit of the unloved, or only half-loved lover, than he himself ever dreamed of. "Well," said that lady, with sly, matronly smile, as, showing more attention than usual, she lighted Agatha's candle for bed "Well, my dear Miss Bowen, is the wedding to be at my house?" "What wedding?" "Oh, you know; you know!
Agatha, who, treating him with a careless womanly superiority that girls of nineteen use, had asked "how long he had been in Canada?" and been answered "Fifteen years," hesitated at her next intended question the very rude and malicious one "How old he was when he left home?" "I was, as you say, very young when I quitted England," he answered, to a less pointed remark of Miss Ianson's.
This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling it left was very new, tremulous, and strange. The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury Church with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other Agatha said her prayers in due sabbatical form.
Ianson's door, her attention was called to Mr. Harper, whose feet dragged so wearily along, that Agatha was convinced that, in spite of his efforts to conceal it, he was seriously ill. Her womanly sympathy rose she earnestly pressed him to come in and consult Dr. Ianson. "No no. Uncle Brian and I always cure ourselves. As he often says, 'A man after forty is either a doctor or a fool."
Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to take a message for her to Major Harper's. It was to the effect that she wished immediately to see that gentleman, could he make it convenient to visit her. The message was given by her very distinctly, and with most creditable calmness, considering that the destinies of her whole life hung on the sentence.
On the Friday evening, when Miss Bowen, heartily tired of her weather-bound imprisonment, stood at the dining-room window, looking out on a hazy, yellow glow that began to appear in the west, sparkled on the drenched trees of the square, and made little bright reflections on the rain-pools of the pavement, there appeared a gentleman from the house round the corner, carefully picking his steps by the crossing, and finally landing at Doctor Ianson's door.
"Your brother," she had not yet quite the courage to say "my husband," when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper "your brother thought you were out of town." "I? yes no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in? Good morning!" In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr. Ianson's door, which they were just passing.
"Well, Tittens, I don't know, really, what we are to do with ourselves this morning," said Agatha, talking aloud to her Familiar, the black kitten, who shared the solitude of her little drawing-room. "You'd like to go and play downstairs, I dare say? It's all very nice for you to be running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in fancy-work.
All laughed at the anecdote, and the Iansons looked with additional respect on the man who thus carelessly counted his grandfathers up to the Commonwealth. But Mrs. Ianson's curiosity penetrated even to the Harpers of Queen Victoria's day. "Indeed we can't let you two gentlemen away so early.
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