Peter was perfectly delighted at having all his Hayesboro friends come. He wrote them all letters, and Mabel wrote them notes. After that Peter got uneasy and made Judge Vandyne write to everybody, and the next day he insisted that I should write, too.
"Oh, I wish Sam could come, but I know he can't," I said, with a sudden hurt place just where I was about to swallow my mushroomed cutlet.
"Sam not come?" said Peter, growing white about his mouth and throwing down his napkin.
"Oh, Peter, Sam didn't want me to say anything about it, but he doesn't think it is possible for him to get away and--and you know, Peter, Sam has to buy the sheep he wants to put in the woods; and I told you that another mule--"
"I can't, I can't stand it for Samboy not to be here," said Peter as he pushed his cutlet away from him, upset his glass, and turned over a vase that in turn knocked down the center vase of roses, besides upsetting the composure of the butler and one footman. I saw it was going to be a regular poetic outburst, such as Mammy would have called a tantrum in Sam or me, and that Mabel was positively scared and Miss Greenough much pained.
"Crittenden will be here," said Judge Vandyne in a perfectly calm and certain voice. "Don't worry, son!"
I knew he meant that he would lend Sam the money, or I thought I knew that, and I felt perfectly sure that Sam wouldn't come. Nobody knows Samuel Foster Crittenden as I do; and the reason he is so congenial with his mules is that he is so like them in "setness" of disposition. I just raged at him in my heart, for I knew from the way I felt myself how poor Peter wanted him; but I controlled myself and went right on talking about how I knew the others would come and how much they would enjoy it.
"Julia has never been to New York. Won't she be delicious?" I exclaimed as we came to her on the list. Peter had put her first.
"Delicious is the right word," said Peter, and he then launched forth in a description of Julia that I would hardly have recognized, though I had been born across the street from her and have loved her devotedly from our second years. It is such a joy to have two people whom you love appreciative of each other, and I knew that Julia fully reciprocated Peter's interested friendship for her. She had wept on my shoulder at parting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters for me while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for the trip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at The Briers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting with Sam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to continue about Julia, I wrote her how to have her dresses made, but told her to get only one little traveling-hat and leave the rest to Mabel and me and Fifth Avenue. I also advised Edith and Sue to do likewise, but I knew Miss Editha would have Miss Sally Pride make her a new bonnet on the frame of the old one, and Peter said she would not be the "wraith of an old rose" in anything else.