A joyous welcome from lovers, relatives, and friends awaited them there. Then followed the fall, winter, and early spring months, filled up and made delightful by the accustomed round of study, needlework, social calls, and visits, interspersed with religious duties and charitable work, etc.
Evelyn was often at Woodburn, and she and Lucilla made many pretty things for the adornment of their future homes. The weddings were to be postponed till Max came home, and to their disappointment that home-coming was deferred month after month till Chester grew exceedingly weary of waiting. Letters were received occasionally from Max, but he knew no more than they when he would be able to rejoin them and claim his bonny bride. The waiting was doubtless harder for him than for Chester or either of the girls. They indeed seemed to take it quietly and contentedly.
Grace was very happy with her lover close at hand and often visiting her professionally or otherwise. And with her this state of things seemed to be conducive to health; she grew rosier, stronger, gayer, and more lively in her speech and manner than she had ever been before. So great a joy was it to her father to perceive the change that he soon fully forgave Harold for seeking her affection while she was still so young and feeble. Harold seemed to be waiting very patiently, and when Chester grumbled at his long enforced wait, Lucilla sometimes playfully called his attention to the good example set him by Harold.
"But there isn't the same need of waiting in our case," he would reply, "for, I am thankful to say, you are as healthy a girl as any that I know of."
"Yes; but think of the disappointment to Max and Eva if we shouldn't wait for them, when we can be together almost as much as if we were married, and all the time doing things to make our new home as lovely as possible."
The continuance of war in the Philippines, a cause of more or less regret to everybody, was doubly so to Max's friends and relatives, because it delayed his return month after month. They missed him particularly when Christmas time came and he was not there to share in the pleasant exchange of gifts and greetings. They had sent gifts to him, hoping they would reach him in good season, and as usual they bestowed them upon each other. For weeks beforehand Violet had spent a good deal of time in her studio, and the result was a handsome portrait of the captain for each of his older daughters. They were highly pleased with them, saying that nothing else could have given them so much pleasure. The captain's gifts to them and Violet were valuable books and some fine paintings for their walls.