"Good-bye, adorable darling!" said Betts, laughing through tears.
"Good-bye, dearest," whispered Anna, holding her close.
"Good-bye, my own girl!" The last kiss was for Mrs. Carroll, and Susan knew of whom the mother was thinking as the first bride ran down the path.
"Well, aren't they all darlings?" said young Mrs. Oliver, in the train.
"Corkers!" agreed the groom. "Don't you want to take your hat off, Sue?"
"Well, I think I will," Susan said pleasantly. Conversation languished.
"Tired, dear?"
"Oh, no!" Susan said brightly.
"I wonder if you can smoke in here," Billy observed, after a pause.
"I don't believe you can!" Susan said, interestedly.
"Well, when he comes through I'll ask him---"
Susan felt as if she should never speak spontaneously again. She was very tired, very nervous, able, with cold dispassion, to wonder what she and Billy Oliver were doing in this close, dirty train,--to wonder why people ever spoke of a wedding-day as especially pleasant,--what people found in life worth while, anyway!
She thought that it would be extremely silly in them to attempt to reach the cabin to-night; far more sensible to stay at Farwoods, where there was a little hotel, or, better yet, go back to the city. But Billy, although a little regretful for the darkness in which they ended their journey, suggested no change of plan, and Susan found herself unable to open the subject. She made the stage trip wedged in between Billy and the driver, climbed down silently at the foot of the familiar trail, and carried the third suitcase up to the cabin.
"You can't hurt that dress, can you, Sue?" said Billy, busy with the key.
"No!" Susan said, eager for the commonplace. "It's made for just this!"
"Then hustle and unpack the eats, will you? And I'll start a fire!"
"Two seconds!" Susan took off her hat, and enveloped herself in a checked apron. There was a heavy chill in the room; there was that blank forbidding air in the dusty, orderly room that follows months of unuse. Susan unpacked, went to and fro briskly; the claims of housekeeping reassured and soothed her.
Billy made thundering journeys for wood. Presently there was a flare of lighted papers in the fireplace, and the heartening snap and crackle of wood. The room was lighted brilliantly; delicious odors of sap mingled with the fragrance from Susan's coffee pot.
"Oh, keen idea!" said Billy, when she brought the little table close to the hearth. "Gee, that's pretty!" he added, as she shook over it the little fringed tablecloth, and laid the blue plates neatly at each side.