Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/331

Rh suspicion, and we must do the properly conventional thing.”

“I don’t mind their knowing that I am a Bohemian, and what I am, that thou art also,” he had whispered;  and then in the next breath he had turned to receive the  congratulations of an elderly lady who had known Agnes  from infancy, and wished to tell him what a pretty baby  she had been, “Contrary to the proverb,” he had said  proudly, “that handsome infants grow up to be far from  pretty. Come, Agnes, after such a compliment, you ought to let me depart from this bower of beauty and enjoy  myself.”

“Without me?” cried Agnes, in mock alarm, to the great amusement of Nora, who stood near by.

“No, indeed, not without you; I think that you are needed out there on the lawn to chaperone your sister and  my brother, who seem to be enjoying themselves in shameless comfort seated in chairs, while we have had to stand  here for ages.”

Just then the best man, Mr. Moffit, came forward to say that word had been sent by him to Mr. and Mrs. Weston, requesting their immediate presence in the dining-room. Then Agnes realized that her father and mother were no longer in the “bower,” as Ralph called it, and  suddenly she felt a little tired, and she admitted that she  was hungry; and, leaning on her husband’s arm, she  entered the dining-room, while an orchestra stationed on  the rear piazza played the “Lohengrin” wedding march;  and a murmur of admiration ran around the room as the