“That is the prettiest wedding I’ve been
to for an age, Ned, and I don’t see why, for
there wasn’t a bit of style about it,”
observed Mrs. Moffat to her husband, as they drove
away.
“Laurie, my lad, if you ever want to indulge
in this sort of thing, get one of those little girls
to help you, and I shall be perfectly satisfied,”
said Mr. Laurence, settling himself in his easy chair
to rest after the excitement of the morning.
“I’ll do my best to gratify you, Sir,”
was Laurie’s unusually dutiful reply, as he
carefully unpinned the posy Jo had put in his buttonhole.
The little house was not far away, and the only bridal
journey Meg had was the quiet walk with John from
the old home to the new. When she came down,
looking like a pretty Quakeress in her dove-colored
suit and straw bonnet tied with white, they all gathered
about her to say ‘good-by’, as tenderly
as if she had been going to make the grand tour.
“Don’t feel that I am separated from you,
Marmee dear, or that I love you any the less for loving
John so much,” she said, clinging to her mother,
with full eyes for a moment. “I shall come
every day, Father, and expect to keep my old place
in all your hearts, though I am married. Beth
is going to be with me a great deal, and the other
girls will drop in now and then to laugh at my housekeeping
struggles. Thank you all for my happy wedding
day. Goodby, goodby!”
They stood watching her, with faces full of love and
hope and tender pride as she walked away, leaning
on her husband’s arm, with her hands full of
flowers and the June sunshine brightening her happy
face—and so Meg’s married life began.
ARTISTIC ATTEMPTS
It takes people a long time to learn the difference
between talent and genius, especially ambitious young
men and women. Amy was learning this distinction
through much tribulation, for mistaking enthusiasm
for inspiration, she attempted every branch of art
with youthful audacity. For a long time there
was a lull in the ‘mud-pie’ business,
and she devoted herself to the finest pen-and-ink drawing,
in which she showed such taste and skill that her graceful
handiwork proved both pleasant and profitable.
But over-strained eyes caused pen and ink to be laid
aside for a bold attempt at poker-sketching.
While this attack lasted, the family lived in constant
fear of a conflagration, for the odor of burning wood
pervaded the house at all hours, smoke issued from
attic and shed with alarming frequency, red-hot pokers
lay about promiscuously, and Hannah never went to bed
without a pail of water and the dinner bell at her
door in case of fire. Raphael’s face was
found boldly executed on the underside of the moulding
board, and Bacchus on the head of a beer barrel.
A chanting cherub adorned the cover of the sugar
bucket, and attempts to portray Romeo and Juliet supplied
kindling for some time.
