"And to-morrow," he supplemented, "and all the to-morrows to come."
"Together," she said, with a swift realisation of the sweetness underlying the word. "Yesterday was perfect, like a jewel that we can put away and keep. When we want to, we can always go back and look at it."
"No, dear," he returned, soberly; "no one can ever go back to yesterday." Then, with a swift change of mood, he asked: "When shall we be married?"
"Whenever you like," she whispered, her eyes downcast and her colour receding.
"In the Fall, then, when the grapes have been gathered and just before school begins?"
He could scarcely hear her murmured: "Yes."
"I want to take you to town and let you see things. Theatres, concerts, operas, parks, shops, art galleries, everything. If the crop is in early, we should be able to have two weeks. Do you think you could crowd all the lost opportunities of a lifetime into two weeks?"
"Into a day, with you."
He drew her closer. This sort of thing was very sweet to him, and the girl's dull personality had bloomed like some pale, delicate flower. He saw unfathomed depths in her grey eyes, shining now, with the indescribable light that comes from within. She had been negative and colourless, but now she was a lovely mystery – a half-blown windflower on some brown, bare hillside, where Life, in all its fulness, was yet to come.
"Did you tell your Grandmother and Aunt Matilda?"
"No. How could I?"
"You'd better not. They'd only make it hard for you, and I wouldn't be allowed in the parlour anyway."
Rosemary had not thought of that. It was only that her beautiful secret was too sacred to put into words. "They'll have to know some time," she temporised.
"Yes, of course, but not until the last minute. The day we're to be married, you can just put on your hat and say: 'Grandmother, and Aunty, I'm going out now, to be married to Alden Marsh. I shan't be back, so good-bye."
She laughed, but none the less the idea filled her with consternation. "What will they say!" she exclaimed.
"It doesn't matter what they say, as long as you're not there to hear it."
"Clothes," she said, half to herself. "I can't be married in brown alpaca, can I?"
"I don't know why not. We'll take the fatal step as early as possible in the morning, catch the first train to town, you can shop all the afternoon to your heart's content, and be dressed like a fine lady in time for dinner in the evening."
"Grandmother was married in brown alpaca," she continued, irrelevantly, "and Aunt Matilda wore it the night the minister came to call."
"Did he never come again?"
"No. Do you think it could have been the alpaca?"
"I'm sure it wasn't. Aunt Matilda was foreordained to be an old maid."
"She won't allow anyone to speak of her as an old maid. She says she's a spinster."
"What's the difference?"
"I think," returned Rosemary, pensively, "that an old maid is a woman who never could have married and a spinster is merely one who hasn't."
"Is it a question of opportunity?"
"I believe so."
"Then you're wrong, because some of the worst old maids I've ever known have been married women. I've seen men, too, who deserve the title."
"Poor Aunt Matilda," Rosemary sighed; "I'm sorry for her."
"Why?"
"Because she hasn't anyone to love her – because she hasn't you. I'm sorry for every other woman in the world," she concluded, generously, "because I have you all to myself."
"Sweet," he answered, possessing himself of her hand, "don't forget that you must divide me with mother."
"I won't. Will she care, do you think, because – " Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur.
"Of course not. She's glad. I told her this morning."
"Oh!" cried Rosemary, suddenly tremulous and afraid. "What did she say?"
"She was surprised at first." Alden carefully refrained from saying how much his mother had been surprised and how long it had been before she found herself equal to the occasion.
"Yes – and then?"
"Then she said she was glad; that she wanted me to be happy. She told me that she had always liked you and that the house wouldn't be so lonely after you came to live with us. Then she asked me to bring you to see her, as soon as you were ready to come."
The full tide overflowed in the girl's heart. She yearned toward Mrs. Marsh with worship, adoration, love. The mother-hunger made her faint with longing for a woman's arms around her, for a woman's tears of joy to mingle with her own.
"Take me to her," Rosemary pleaded. "Take me now!"
Madame saw them coming and went to the door to meet them. Rosemary was not at all what she had fancied in the way of a daughter-in-law, but, wisely, she determined to make the best of Alden's choice. Something in her stirred in answer to the infinite appeal in the girl's eyes. At the crowning moment of her life, Rosemary stood alone, fatherless, motherless, friendless, with only brown alpaca to take the place of all the pretty things that seem girlhood's right.
Madame smiled, then opened her arms. Without a word, Rosemary went to her, laid her head upon the sweet, silken softness of the old lady's shoulder, and began to cry softly.
"Daughter," whispered Madame, holding her close. "My dear daughter! Please don't!"
Rosemary laughed through her tears, then wiped her eyes. "It's only an April rain," she said. "I'm crying because I'm so happy."
"I wish," responded Madame, gently, with a glance at her son, "that I might be sure all the tears either of you are ever to shed would be tears of joy. It's the bitterness that hurts."
"Don't be pessimistic, Mother," said Alden, with a little break in his voice. Rosemary's tears woke all his tenderness. He longed to shield and shelter her; to stand, if he might, between her and the thousand pricks and stabs of the world.
"We'll have tea," Madame went on, brightly, ringing a silver bell as she spoke. "Then we shan't be quite so serious."
"Woman's inevitable solace," Alden observed, lounging about the room with his hands in his pockets. Man-like, he welcomed the change of mood.
"I wonder," he continued, with forced cheerfulness, "why people always cry at weddings and engagements and such things? A husband or wife is the only relative we are permitted to choose – we even have very little to say when it comes to a mother-in-law. With parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins all provided by a generous but sometimes indiscriminating Fate, it seems hard that one's only choice should be made unpleasant by salt water.
"Why," he went on, warming to his subject, "I remember how a certain woman angled industriously for months to capture an unsuspecting young man for her daughter. When she finally landed him, and the ceremony came off to the usual accompaniment of Mendelssohn and a crowded church, I feared that the bridal couple might have to come down the aisle from the altar in a canoe, on account of the maternal tears."
"Perhaps," suggested Rosemary, timidly, "she was only crying because she was happy."
"If she was as happy as all those tears would indicate, it's a blessed wonder she didn't burst."
Madame smiled fondly at her son as she busied herself with the tea things. Rosemary watched the white, plump hands that moved so gracefully among the cups, and her heart contracted with a swift little pang of envy, of which she was immediately ashamed. Unconsciously, she glanced at her own rough, red hands. Madame saw the look, and understood.
"We'll soon fix them, my dear,"