Page:Rose in Bloom (Alcott).djvu/384

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

meaning of the quick look she had cast at the hat-rack, as she shut the study-door behind her.

"Mercy, no! Archie and Phebe are there, so he'd have the sense to pop into the sanctum and wait; unless you'd like me to go and bring him out?" added Kitty, smoothing Rose's ruffled hair, and settling the flowers on the bosom where Uncle Alec's head had laid until he fell asleep.

"No, thank you, I'll go to him when I've seen my Phebe. She won't mind me," answered Rose, moving on to the parlor.

"Look here," called Steve, "do advise them to hurry up and all be married at once. We were just ready when uncle fell ill, and now we can not wait a day later than the first of May."

"Rather short notice," laughed Rose, looking back with the door-knob in her hand.

"We'll give up all our splendor, and do it as simply as you like, if you will only come too. Think how lovely! three weddings at once! Do fly round and settle things: there's a dear," implored Kitty, whose imagination was fired with this romantic idea.

"How can I, when I have no bridegroom yet?" began Rose, with conscious color in her tell-tale face.

"Sly creature! you know you've only got to say a word and have a famous one. Una and her lion will be nothing to it," cried Steve, bent on hastening his