Materfamilias

"Oh, I like that!" he laughed, throwing an arm round my waist. "You know very well you've only got to put your smart gown on and walk away from the lot of 'em – bride and bridesmaids and all."

Old goose! But I am sure when he was dressed, and the lilies of the valley stuck in his buttonhole, he could walk away from any young bridegroom in the matter of looks – aye, even his own handsome son. They all kissed me fondly before leaving the house – my pretty girls, and Edmund, who was as dear as they – and I stood at the gate to see them go with the pleasant knowledge that I should be more conspicuous by my absence than any one by their presence at the wedding party, except the bride herself.

In the afternoon, when Eddie was asleep and I was beginning to feel rather tired of my own company, I had a visit from kind old Mrs. Juke. She too had married her sons and daughters, so she could sympathise with me. We had a comfortable tea together, and lots of talk, comparing notes, as mothers love to do; and then we amused ourselves with our grandchild, like two infants with a doll. She was of Tom's opinion that he was the image of me, and she was in raptures at the improvement in him since I had "saved his life" – as she persisted in calling the mere giving of a simple emetic. Strange to say, with all the children she had had, she could not remember a case of croup amongst them, and she did not know the sovereign virtue of fresh ipecacuanha wine. Later in the afternoon we walked to the new house, wheeling the perambulator in turn; and I showed her everything, and she thought all perfect – as it was. She was wonderfully agile for a rather stout woman, making nothing of the long tramp; and her intelligent appreciation of artistic things surprised me. I had long discovered the fact that she was excellently educated. Her father had had large flour mills and been wealthy in his day, and his daughters had all had advantages – far more than I had had myself, in fact. Poor Mrs. Blount, on the contrary, had never mixed with cultured people, as her accent indicated.

"Well," said Ted's mother, in Ted's own nice way, when our inspection of the little house was ended, "Emily Blount ought to be a happy girl."

"And she is," I replied. "About as happy as a young bride ever was in this world – except myself."

"And me," said Mrs. Juke.

"And you."

I was glad and proud to believe that it was so.

But since then I have wondered sometimes whether Emily appreciates her extraordinary luck as she ought to do. Now and then it comes across me that she takes it a little too much as a matter of course.

It is very nice – very nice indeed – to have her living so near me, but I must say she is not quite so docile as she was before her marriage. Being a University woman, she naturally knows nothing in the world about housekeeping, and it was only in kindness to her and out of consideration for Harry's purse that I advised her now and then on domestic matters. I thought to be sure she would be grateful for hints from one of such large experience, but it was evidently otherwise, since as a rule she did not take them. I told her that three pounds of butter a week for three people was preposterous, and that light crust made of clarified beef dripping was infinitely nicer as well as more wholesome than the rich puff paste they put to everything; but she went on taking the three pounds just the same. Though I gave her a sausage machine and endless recipes for doing up cold scraps, I used to see good pieces of meat thrown away continually; and a girl they had, who lit the morning fire with kerosene, and who told my Jane that she "couldn't stand the old lady at no price," broke crockery every time she touched it, and yet they persisted in keeping her. As I said to Harry, if they got into these extravagant ways when there were but two of them, how would it be presently when there was a family to support? But your son is never the same son after he has taken a wife, and Harry did not like to be appealed to. The other day he said, "Please don't interfere with her" – quite as if he were speaking to some meddlesome outsider. I interfere! The notion was too absurd. I reminded him how I had held aloof from the Jukes when they were young beginners, as proving as I was not the sort of person to force myself where I was not wanted, even upon my own children. But he and Emily are not like my beloved Edmund and Phyllis, who think there is no one in the world like "Mater dear."

THE END