Brower
heard her intonation, and wondered over its meaning; but he would have
found no meaning in the words themselves, even if they had been
distinctly audible, for he knew no French.
Jane crooned the same brief snatch of melody many a time as the
preparations for her sister's wedding moved along--particularly during
those hours when she sat in her own room and directed the invitations. It
was the only bed-chamber which she remembered ever to have occupied--the
same furniture, the same fireplace, the same outlook, the same familiar
curtains, gas-jets, door-knobs that had been known to her tomboy
childhood, to her formidably plain girlhood, to her ambitious and
philanthropic spinsterhood. The very air of it seemed thick with
her varying hopes and plans and dreams and projects and ideals. In this
retired bower she had slept for her whole life, and no fairy prince had
ever penetrated to it to awaken her. One had come for Alice and one for
Rosy, but never a--"_Toujours fidele!_" moaned Jane, in her deepest
contralto, and fell to work with renewed zeal upon her envelopes.
There were hundreds and hundreds of them. Rosy had imagined a function of
the first magnitude, and it was not to dwindle for mere lack of material.
She had determined upon a ceremony in church and a large reception at the
house, with everything in the way of music, flowers, functionaries, and
supernumeraries that the most approved forms could incorporate.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321