When the wedding bouquet arrived Edith sought out her uncle in his study on the second floor.
“Look at this,” she said; “how in the world did it happen that he sent white violets? Did you tell him, Uncle Fred?”
They had had their joke about Del’s orchids. “If he knew how I hated them,” Edith would say, and Uncle Fred would answer, “Why don’t you tell him?”
But she had never told, because after all it didn’t much matter, and if Delafield felt that orchids were the proper thing, why muddle up his mind with her preferences?
“Anyhow,” she said now, “I am glad my wedding bouquet is different.” As she stood there, lovely in her sheer draperies, the fragrant mass of flowers in her arms, her eyes looked at him over the top, wistfully. “Uncle Fred,” she asked, unexpectedly, “do you love me?”
“Please don’t say it that way----” Her voice caught.
He stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. “My dear child,” he said, “I do.”
“You’ve been no end good to me,” she said, and dropped the bouquet on a chair and clung to him, sobbing.
He held her in his arms and soothed her. “Being a bride is a bit nerve-racking.”
She nodded. “And I mustn’t let my eyes get red.”
She kissed him shyly on the cheek. They had never indulged much in kisses. He felt if she had always been as sweetly feminine, he should have been sorry to have her marry.
He did not see her again until she was in her wedding gown, composed and smiling.
He laughed. “Oh, well, you’ll have plenty to say to each other afterward.” But the thought intruded that with such a bride a man might show himself, on this day of days, ardent and eager.
Rosalind and Helen and Margaret, shimmering, opalescent, their young eyes radiant under their wide hats, joined the other bridesmaids in the great limousine which was to take them to the church. Cousin Annabel went with other cousins. Edith and her uncle were alone in their car. Frederick’s man, Briggs, who had been the family coachman in the days of horses, drove them.
Washington was shining under the winter sun as they whirled through the streets to the old church. “Happy is the bride the sun shines on,” said Frederick, feeling rather foolish. It was somewhat difficult to talk naturally to this smiling beauty in her bridal white. She seemed miles removed from the aggressive maiden with whom he had fought and made up and fought again.