Hazel and Ruth Holabird were warm friends. And Hazel was to be Ruth's bridesmaid, by and by!
For Ruth Holabird was going to be married to Dakie Thayne.
"That seemed so funny," Hazel said. "Ruth didn't _look_ any older than she did; and Mr. Dakie Thayne was such a nice boy!"
He was no less a man, either; he had graduated among the first three at West Point; he was looking earnestly for the next thing that he should do in life with his powers and responsibilities; he did not count his marrying a _separate_ thing; that had grown up alongside and with the rest; of course he could do nothing without Ruth; that was just what he had told her; and she,--well Ruth was always a sensible little thing, and it was just as plain to her as it was to him. Of course she must help him think and plan; and when the plans were made, it would take two to carry them out; why, yes, they must be married. What other way would there be?
That wasn't what she _said_, but that was the quietly natural and happy way in which it grew to be a recognized thing in her mind, that pleasant summer after he came straight home to them with his honors and his lieutenant's commission in the Engineers; and his hearty, affectionate taking-for-granted; and it was no surprise or question with her, only a sure and very beautiful "rightness," when it came openly about.
Dakie Thayne was a man; the beginning of a very noble one; but it is the noblest men that always keep a something of the boy. If you had not seen anything more of Dakie Thayne until he should be forty years old, you would then see something in him which would be precisely the same that it was at Outledge, seven years ago, with Leslie Goldthwaite, and among the Holabirds at Westover, in his first furlough from West Point.
Luclarion came into the Ripwinkley kitchen just as the cakes--the little pepper-pot one and all--were going triumphantly into the oven, and Hazel was baring her little round arms to wash the dishes, while Diana tended the pans.
Mrs. Ripwinkley heard her old friend's voice, and came out.
"That girl ought to be here with you; or somewheres else than where she is, or is likely to be took," said Luclarion, as she looked round and sat down, and untied her bonnet-strings.