Gibson and her brother, who I see is still here, shall be our witnesses, and we will have Tommy and Dolly for ushers."

Both laughed aloud in their childish glee at the picture that Quincy had painted. "I could ask for nothing better," said Alice; "the ceremony will be modest, artistic, and idyllic."

"And economical, too," Quincy added with a laugh.

And so it came to pa.s.s! They were married, and the transformation in the little room, that Quincy and Alice had seen in their mind's eye, was realized to the letter. Flowers, best man, bridesmaid, witnesses, ushers, and the aged clergyman, with whitened locks, who called them his children, and blessed them and wished them long life and happiness, hoped that they would meet and know each other some day in the infinite--all were there.

This was on Wednesday. On Thursday came a letter from Aunt Ella. It contained the most kindly congratulations, and a neat little wedding present of a check for fifty thousand dollars. She wrote further that she was lonesome and wanted somebody to read to her, and talk to her, and sing to her. If the book was done, would not Miss Very come to spend the remainder of the season with her, and if Mr. Ernst was there could he not spare time to escort Miss Very.

That same evening Leopold received a letter from Mr. Morton. It simply read, "Blennerha.s.sett accepted; will be put in type at once and issued by the first of November, perhaps sooner."

The next morning Leopold and Rosa started for Old Orchard, and the lovers were left alone to pa.s.s their honeymoon, with the blue sea about them, the blue sky above them, and a love within their hearts which grew stronger day by day.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

LINDA'S BIRTHRIGHT.

For Quincy and Alice, day after day, and week after week, found them in a state of complete happiness. The little island floating in the azure sea was their world, and for the time, no thought of any other intruded upon their delightful Eden. It seemed to Quincy all a blissful dream of love, and everything he looked upon was wreathed in flowers and golden sunshine.

But lotus land is not so far distant from the abodes of mortal man but that his emissaries may reach it. The first jarring note in the sweet harmony of their married life came in the form of a letter from Dr.

Culver, who wrote to remind Quincy that it would soon be time to start in ploughing the political field. Quincy's reply was brief and to the point.

"MY DEAR CULVER:--I will see you in Boston on the tenth of September. Q.A.S."

When Aunt Ella learned that her nephew was going to town, she made hurried preparations for her departure from Old Orchard, and wrote to him insisting that he and Alice should come and stay with her. This invitation they gladly accepted, Quincy arranging in his mind to explain matters to his family by saying that, as he had now entered politics and would necessarily have a great many callers to entertain, he thought it best to make his headquarters with Aunt Ella until the campaign was over.

Accordingly, the ninth of September saw them located at Mt Vernon Street. On the very day of their arrival, proof of the remaining stories and a large instalment of Blennerha.s.sett reached them, with a note from Ernst:

"Please rush. Press is waiting."

Miss Very's a.s.sistance was now absolutely necessary, but when Quincy asked Leopold for her address, he was surprised at the reply he received.

"I haven't seen her," said Leopold, "since we came back from Old Orchard together. In fact, since that time, our relations, for some reason or other, have undergone a great change. However, I think I can help you out. I don't believe in keeping a good friend like you, Quincy, in suspense, so I will tell you the truth. I am married. My wife is fully as competent to a.s.sist Mrs. Sawyer as Miss Very would have been. She is in the library now at work. I will go and ask her."

He entered the room, closing the door behind him. Quincy threw himself rather discontentedly into a chair. He fancied he heard laughing in the next room, but he knew Alice would be disappointed, and he himself felt in no mood for laughter.

Leopold opened the library door. "Quincy, I've induced her to undertake the task," he said. "Do spare a moment from your work, Mrs. Ernst; I wish to introduce to you Mr. Quincy Adams Sawyer, the husband of the author of that coming literary sensation, Blennerha.s.sett. Mr. Sawyer,"

he continued, "allow me to present you to my wife, Mrs. Rosa Ernst." And as he said this, Leopold and Rosa stood side by side in the doorway.

"When did you do it?" finally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Quincy, rushing forward and grasping each by the hand. "Leopold, I owe you one." And then they all laughed together.

By some means, Dr. Culver said by the liberal use of money, Barker Dalton secured the regular nomination from Quincy's party. The latter kept his word and entered the field as an independent candidate. A hot contest followed. The papers were full of the speeches of the opposing candidates, and incidents connected with their lives. But in none relating to Quincy was a word said about his marriage, and the fact was evidently unknown, except to a limited few. When the polls closed on election day and the vote was declared, it was found that Sawyer had a plurality of two hundred and twenty-eight and a clear majority of twenty-two over both Dalton and Burke, the opposing candidates. Then the papers were full of compliments for Mr. Sawyer, who had so successfully fought corruption and bribery in his own party, and won such a glorious victory.

But Quincy never knew that the Hon. Nathaniel Adams Sawyer had used all his influence to secure his son's election, and for every dollar expended by Dalton, the Hon. Nathaniel had covered it with a two or five if necessary.

The publication of Blennerha.s.sett had been heralded by advance notices that appeared in the press during the month of October.

These notices had been adroitly written. Political prejudices, one notice said, would no doubt be aroused by statements made in the book, and one newspaper went so far as to publish a double-leaded editorial protesting against the revival of party animosities buried more than two generations ago. The leaven worked, and when the book was placed in the stores on the eleventh of November, the demand for it was unparalleled.

Orders came for it from all parts of the country, particularly from the State of New York, and the resources of the great publishing house of Hinckley, Morton, & Co. were taxed to the utmost to meet the demand.

While Quincy was fighting Dalton in the political field, another campaign was being planned in the clever diplomatic brain of Aunt Ella.

It related to the introduction of Alice, the "farmer's daughter," to the proud patrician family of Sawyer, as Quincy's wife--no easy matter to accomplish satisfactorily, as all agreed.

The initial step was taken a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, when a daintily-engraved card was issued from Mt. Vernon Street, which read:

"Your company is respectfully requested on the evening of the tenth of December at a reception to be given to Bruce Douglas, the author of Blennerha.s.sett."

One evening, Quincy ran up the steps of the Mt. Vernon Street house. He opened the door and started to run up the stairs to his wife's room, as was his custom, when he came into collision with a young lady, who, upon closer inspection, he found to be his sister Maude.

"Come in here," she said. She grasped him by the arm, and, dragging him into the parlor, she closed the door behind him.

"Oh, Mr. Man!" she cried, "I've found you out, but horses sha'n't drag it out of me. No, Quincy, you're always right, and I won't peach. But 'twas mean not to tell me."

Quincy looked at her in voiceless astonishment. "What do you mean, Maude, and where did you gather up all that slang?"

"I might ask you," said Maude, "where you found your wife. I've been talking to her upstairs. She must have thought that papa and mamma knew all about it, for she told me who she was, just as easy. Who is she, Quincy?"

He drew his sister down beside him on a sofa. "She was Miss Mary Alice Pettengill. She is now known to a limited few, of which you, sister Maude, are one, as Mrs. Mary Alice Sawyer; but she is known to a wide circle of readers as Bruce Douglas, the author of many popular stories, as also of that celebrated book ent.i.tled Blennerha.s.sett."

"Is that so?" cried Maude; "why, papa is wild over that book. He's been reading it aloud to us evenings, and he said last night that that young man--you hear, Quincy?--that young man, had brought the truth to the surface at last."

"Now, Maude," said Quincy, "you go right home and keep your mouth shut a little while longer, and when you are sixteen"--"the ninth of next January," broke in Maude--"I'll give you a handsome gold watch, with my picture in it."

"I don't have to be paid to keep your secrets, Quincy," replied Maude archly, as Quincy kissed her.

"I know it, dear," said Quincy; "I'll give you the watch, not as pay, but to show my grat.i.tude."

Quincy took an early opportunity to explain to his wife his remissness in not informing his parents of his marriage, and disclosed to her Aunt Ella's plan.

On the tenth, Mrs. Chessman's s.p.a.cious parlor was thronged from nine till eleven o'clock with bright and shining lights, representing the musical, artistic, literary, and social culture of Boston. Among the guests were the Hon. Nathaniel Adams Sawyer, his wife, and his daughters, Florence and Maude. The surprise of the visitors at the discovery that Bruce Douglas was a young woman was followed by one of great pleasure at finding her beautiful and affable.

The reception and entertainment were acknowledged on all sides to have been most successful, and a thoroughly pleased and satisfied company had spoken their farewells to author and hostess by quarter-past eleven. So, when Quincy came up Walnut Street and glanced across at his aunt's house, a little before twelve, he found the windows dark and the occupants, presumably, in their beds.

As part of her plan, Quincy had been advised by Aunt Ella to stay away from the reception, to spend the night at his father's house, and to be sure and take breakfast with them, so as to hear what was said about the previous evening.

As soon as the morning meal was over, Quincy ran quickly upstairs, seized his hand-bag, which he always kept packed, ready for an emergency, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time, reached Mt. Vernon Street.

He found his wife and aunt in the den. The latter was reading a ma.n.u.script to Alice.

As soon as the greetings were over, and a little time given to discussing the reception, Quincy asked: "Who is this Mr. Fernborough that Maude told me about this morning?"

"He is an English gentleman," explained Alice, "who has come to this country to see if he can find any trace of an only daughter, who ran away from home with an American more than thirty years ago, and who, he thinks, came to this country with her husband. His wife is dead, he is alone in the world, and he is ready to forgive her and care for her, if she needs it."

"He hasn't hurried himself about it, has he?" said Quincy; "but why did he come to you?"

"That's the strange part of it," Alice replied, "He said he thoughtlessly picked up a magazine at a hotel where he was staying, and his eye fell upon my story, How He Lost Both Name and Fortune. He read it, and sought me out, to ask if it were fiction, or whether it was founded on some true incident. He was quite disappointed when I told him it was entirely a work of the imagination."