She had a twinge of pity, watching the old faces pale and kindle.
With the first rustle of applause, she saw the old father slip his hand into the old mother's. They sat well behind a pillar;and however excited they became, they never so lost themselves as to lean in front of their shield. This, also, she noticed.
The speech over, the woman wiped her eyes. The old man joined in the tumult of applause that swept over the galleries, but the old woman pulled his arm, evidently feeling that it was not decent for them to applaud. She sat rigid, with red cheeks and her eyes brimming;he was swaying and clapping and laughing in a roar of delight.
But it was he that drew her away, finally, while she fain would have lingered to look at Tommy receiving congratulations below.
"Poor things," said Mrs. Carriswood, "I do believe they haven't let him know that they are here." And she remembered how she had pitied them for this very possibility of humiliation years before.
But she did not pursue the adventure, and some obscure motive prevented her speaking of it to Miss Van Harlem.
Did Tommy's parents tell Tommy? If they did, Tommy made no sign.
The morning found him with the others, in a beautiful white flannel suit, with a silk shirt and a red silk sash, looking handsomer than any man of the party. He took the congratulations of the company modestly.
Either he was not much puffed up, or he had the art of concealment.
They saw Alexandria in a conscientious fashion, for the benefit of the guest of the day. He was a modest young fellow with a nose rather too large for his face, a long upper lip, and frank blue eyes.
He made himself agreeable to one of the Cabinet girls, on the front seat, while Tommy, just behind him, had Miss Van Harlem and bliss for his portion.
The old streets, the toppling roofs, the musty warehouses, the uneven pavement, all pleased the young creatures out in the sunshine.
They made merry over the ancient ball-room, where Washington had asked a far-away ancestress of Beatoun to dance; and they decorously walked through the old church.
IT happened in the church. Mrs. Carriswood was behind the others;so she saw them come in, the same little old couple of the Capitol.
In the chancel, Beatoun was explaining; beside Beatoun shone a curly black head that they knew.
Mrs. Carriswood sat in one of the high old pews. Through a crack she could look into the next pew; and there they stood.
She heard the old man: "Whist, Molly, let's be getting out of this! HE is here with all his grand friends.
Don't let us be interrupting him."
The old woman's voice was so like Tommy's that it made Mrs. Carriswood start. Very softly she spoke:
"I only want to look at him a minute, Pat, jest a minute.
I ain't seen him for so long."
"And is it any longer for you than for me?" retorted the husband.
"Ye know what ye promised if I'd be taking you here, unbeknownst.
Don't look his way! Look like ye was a stranger to him.
Don't let us be mortifying him wid our country ways. Like as not 'tis the prisidint, himself, he is colloguein' wid, this blessed minute.
Shtep back and be a stranger to him, woman!"
A stranger to him, his own mother! But she stepped back;she turned her patient face. Then--Tommy saw her.
A wave of red flushed all over his face. He took two steps down the aisle, and caught the little figure in his arms.
"Why, mother?" he cried, "why, mother, where did you drop from?"And before Mrs. Carriswood could speak she saw him step back and push young Sackville forward, crying, "This is my father, this is the boy that knew your grandmother."He did it so easily; he was so entirely unaffected, so perfectly unconscious, that there was nothing at all embarrassing for anyone.
Even the Cabinet girl, with a grandmother in very humble life, who must be kept in the background, could not feel disconcerted.
