Ivory made himself quickly at home, and helped the old lady to
get a room ready for Waitstill before he drove back for a look at
his mother and then on to carry out his impetuous and romantic
scheme of routing out the town clerk and announcing his intended
marriage.
345
Waitstill slept like the shepherd boy in "The Pilgrim's
Progress," with the "herb called Heart's Ease" in her bosom. She
opened her eyes next morning from the depths of Mrs. Mason's best
feather bed, and looked wonderingly about the room, with all its
unaccustomed surroundings. She heard the rattle of fire-irons and
the flatter of dishes below; the first time in all her woman's
life that preparations for breakfast had ever greeted her ears
when she had not been an active participator in them.
She lay quite still for a quarter of an hour, tired in body and
mind, but incredibly happy in spirit, marvelling at the changes
wrought in her during the day preceding, the most eventful one in
her history. Only yesterday her love had been a bud, so closely
folded that she scarcely recognized its beauty or color or
fragrance; only yesterday, and now she held in her hand a perfect
flower. When and how had it grown, and by what magic process?
The image of Ivory had been all through the night in the
foreground of her dreams and in her moments of wakefulness, both
made blissful by the heaven of anticipation that dawned upon her.
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