For Betty was a very well-looking girl, arch and vivacious, and her harvest time of youth must not be wasted. Mrs. King was really glad she had no entanglement.

Mrs. Leverett had no objections to a speedy marriage If Mercy could be content. Warren had thought if he could be prosperous he would like to buy out Betty's share if she married. "And my share will be mine as long as I live," added the mother. "But Warren is fond of the old house, and Hollis has a home of his own. You girls will never want it."

Warren was delighted with what he called "Lecty's spunk." For Aunt Priscilla agreed quite readily. It was dull for Betty with two old people. Mercy would have her husband.

So the wedding day was appointed. Mercy had been a year getting ready.

Girls began soon after they were engaged. Mrs. Gilman was rather afraid the thing wouldn't work, but she was sure Mercy was good tempered, and she had been a good daughter.

They made quite a "turning round." Mrs. Leverett went upstairs to Betty's room, which adjoined Aunt Priscilla's, and she gave some of her furniture for the adornment of the bridal chamber.

It was a very quiet wedding with a few friends and a supper. At nine o'clock the new wife went to Sudbury Street. Mrs. Gilman had some rather strict ideas, and declared it was no time for frolicking when war was at our very door, and no one knew what might happen, and hundreds of families were in pinching want.

Mercy was up the next morning betimes and assisted her new mother with the breakfast. Warren went down to his shop. But they had quite an elaborate tea drinking at the Leveretts', and some songs and games in the evening. Mercy _did_ enjoy the wider life.

Mrs. Manning had come in for the wedding and a few days' stay, though she didn't see how she could be spared just now, and things would get dreadfully behindhand. Mrs. King was to go home with her and make a little visit. Bessy thought she would rather stay with Doris, and she was captivated with the Royall House and Eudora. The children never seemed in the way of the grown people there, and if elderly men talked politics and city improvements,--quite visionary, some thought them,--the young people with Alice and Helen had the garden walks and the wide porch, and discussed the enjoyments of the time with the zest of enthusiastic inexperience but keen delight.

CHAPTER XXI

ELIZABETH AND--PEACE

Mrs. King brought back Elizabeth Manning, a pale, slim ghost of a girl, tall for her age--indeed, really grown up, her mother said. Of the three girls Bessy King had the most indications of the traditional country girl. A fine clear skin, pink cheeks and a plump figure, and an inexhausible flow of spirits, ready for any fun or frolic.

Doris was always well, but she had the Adams complexion, which was rather pale, with color when she was warm, or enthusiastic or indignant.

The pink came and went like a swift summer cloud.

"I do declare," exclaimed Aunt Priscilla, "if 'Lecty King doesn't beat all about getting what she wants, and making other people believe they want it, too! Warren might as well have been married in the winter, and Mercy would have been company for Betty. She never liked to run out and leave me alone. Mercy seems a nice, promising body, and Warren might as well be happy and settled as not. And 'Lecty's been to Washington and dined with the President and Mrs. Madison, and I'll venture to say there was something the President's wife consulted her about. And all the big captains and generals, and what not! And here's the quality of Boston running after her and asking her out just as if we had nothing to feed her on at home. She don't do anything, fursisee, but just look smiling and talk. But my opinion is that Elizabeth Manning hasn't a very long journey to the graveyard. I don't see what Mary's been thinking about."

Mrs. King took her niece to Dr. Jackson, one of the best medical authorities of that day, and he looked the young girl over with his keen eyes.

"If you want the real truth," said the doctor, "she has had too much east wind and too much hard work. The children of this generation are not going to stand what their mothers did. A bad cold or two next winter will finish her, but with care and no undue exposure she may live several years. But she will never reach the three score and ten that every human being has a right to."

Uncle Winthrop sent the carriage around every day to the Leveretts'.

They had given up theirs before Mr. Leverett's death. He and Doris took their morning horseback rides and scoured the beautiful country places for miles around, until Doris knew every magnificent tree or unusual shrub or queer old house and its history. These hours were a great delight to him.

Elizabeth had often gone down to Salem town, but her time was so brief and there was so much to do that she "couldn't bother." And she wondered how Doris knew about the shops in Essex Street and Federal Street and Miss Rust's pretty millinery show, and Mr. John Innes' delicate French rolls and braided bread, and Molly Saunders' gingerbread that the school children devoured, and the old Forrester House with its legends and fine old pictures and the lovely gardens, the wharves with their idle fleets that dared not put out to sea for fear of being swallowed up by the enemy.

Uncle Winthrop had taken her several times when some business had called him thither. But, truth to tell, she had never cared to repeat her visit to Mrs. Manning's.

The piano was like a bit of heaven, Elizabeth thought, the first time she came over to visit Doris.

"Oh," she said, with a long sigh, pressing her hand on her heart, for the deep breaths always hurt her, "if I was only prepared to go to heaven I shouldn't want to stay here a day longer. When they sing about 'eternal rest' it seems such a lovely thing, and to 'lay your burdens down.' But then there's 'the terrors of the law,' and the 'judgments to come,' and the great searching of the hearts and reins--do you know just what the reins are?"

No, Doris didn't. Heaven had always seemed a lovely place to her and God like a father, only grander and tenderer than any human father could be.

Then they talked about praying, and it came out that Doris said her mother's prayers still in French and her father's in English.

"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, horrified, "I shouldn't dare to pray to God in French--it would seem like a mockery. And 'Now I lay me down to sleep' is just a baby prayer, and really isn't pouring out your own soul to God."

Doris asked Uncle Winthrop about it.

"My child," he said with grave sweetness, "you can never say any better prayers of your own. The Saviour himself gave us the comprehensive Lord's Prayer. And are all the nations of the earth who cannot pray in English offering God vain petitions? You will find as you grow older that no earnest soul ever worships God in vain, and that religion is a life-long work. I am learning something new about it every day. And I think God means us to be happy here on earth. He doesn't save all the joys for heaven. He has given me one," and he stooped and kissed Doris on the forehead. "Poor Elizabeth," he added--"make her as happy as you can!"

When Mrs. King proposed to take Betty to New York for the whole of the coming winter there was consternation, but no one could find a valid objection. It was a somewhat expensive journey, and winter was a very enjoyable season in the city. Then another year something new might happen to prevent--there was no time like the present.

No one had the courage to object, though they did not know how to spare her. Aunt Priscilla sighed and brought out some beautiful long-laid-away articles that Electa declared would make over admirably.

"Where do you suppose Aunt Priscilla picked up all these elegant things?" asked Electa. "I never remember seeing her wear them, though she always dressed well, but severely plain. And Uncle Perkins was quite strict about the pomps and vanities of the world."

And so Aunt Priscilla put away the last of her idols and the life she had coveted and never had. But perhaps the best of all was her consideration for others, the certainty that it was quite as well to begin some of the virtues of the heavenly world here on earth that they might not seem strange to one.

Mrs. Manning sent in for Elizabeth.

"Well--you do seem like a different girl," her father declared, looking her over from head to foot. "You've had a good rest now, and you'll have to turn in strong and hearty, for Sarah's gone, and Ruth isn't big enough to take hold of everything. So hunt up your things while I'm doing some trading."

Elizabeth only had time for the very briefest farewells. Mrs. King sent a little note containing the doctor's verdict, but Mrs. Manning was indignant rather than alarmed.

It was lonesome when they were all gone. Eudora Chapman went to a "finishing school" this autumn, and Doris accompanied her--poor Doris, who had not mastered fractions, and whose written arithmetic could not compare with Betty's. She had achieved a pair of stockings after infinite labor and trouble. They _did_ look rowy, being knit tighter and looser. But Aunt Priscilla gave her a pair of fine merino that she had kept from the ravages of the moths. Miss Recompense declared that she had no one else to knit for.

There were expert knitters who made beautiful silk stockings, and Uncle Winthrop said buying helped along trade, so why should Doris worry when there were so many more important matters?

The little girl and her uncle kept track of what was going on in the great world. Napoleon the invincible had been driven back from Russia by cold and famine, forced to yield by the great coalition and losing step by step until he was compelled to accept banishment. Then England redoubled her efforts, prepared to carry on the war with us vigorously.

Towns on the Chesapeake were plundered and burned, and General Ross entered Washington, from which Congress and the President's family had fled for their lives. America was again horror stricken, but gathering all her energies she made such a vigorous defense as to convince her antagonist that though cast down she could never be wholly defeated.

But this attack gave us the inspiration of one of our finest deathless songs. A Mr. Francis S. Key, a resident of Georgetown, had gone down from Baltimore with a flag of truce to procure the release of a friend held as prisoner of war, when the bombardment of Fort McHenry began. All day long he watched the flag as it floated above the ramparts. Night came on and it was still there. And at midnight he could see it only by "the rockets' red glare," while he and his friends tremulously inquired if the "flag still waved o'er the Land of the Free." Oh, what joy must have been his when it "caught the gleam of the morning's first beam." He had put the night watch and the dawn in a song that is still an inspiration.

And now convinced, the enemy withdrew. There were talks of peace, though we did not abate our energies. And the indications of a settlement brought about another wedding at the Royall house.

Miss Alice had been a great favorite with the young men, and her ardent patriotism had inspired more than one, as it had Cary Adams, with a desire to rush to his country's defense. There were admirers too, but most of them had been kept at an intangible distance. At last she had yielded to the eloquence of young Oliver Sargent, who was in every way acceptable. Grandmother Royall expected to give her an elegant wedding along in the winter.

The Government was to send out another commissioner to consult with those already at Ghent, and Mr. Sargent had been offered the post of private secretary. He was to sail from New York, but he obtained leave to spend a few days in Boston to attend to some affairs. He went at once to Madam Royall and laid his plans before her. He wanted to marry Alice and take her with him, as he might be gone a long while. Alice was nothing loath, for the journey abroad was extremely tempting.

But what could one do in such a few days? And wedding clothes----

"Save the wedding gear until we come back," said the impatient young lover. "Alice can get clothes enough abroad."

It was quite a new departure in a wedding. Invitations were always sent out by hand, even for small evening parties, and often verbally given. A private marriage would not have suited old Madam Royall. So the house was crowded at eleven in the morning, and the bride came through the wide hall in a mulberry-colored satin gown and pelisse that had been made two weeks before for ordinary autumn wear. But her bonnet was white with long streamers, and her gloves were white, and she made a very attractive bride, while young Sargent was manly and looked proud enough for a king. At twelve they went away with no end of good wishes, and an old slipper was thrown after the carriage.

Mrs. Morris Winslow had two babies, and was already growing stout. But the departure of Alice made a great break.

"But it is the way of the world and the way of God that young people should marry," said Madam Royall. "I was very happy myself."

"Oh," exclaimed Doris eagerly that evening, her eyes aglow and her cheeks pink with excitement--"oh, Uncle Win, do you think there will be peace?"

"My little girl, it is my prayer day and night."