Vows by Lavyrle Spencer Page B

perhaps you could give me a hand."
      "Just a minute, sir…" Charles stopped Edwin with a hand on his arm.
      "Sir?" Edwin's eyebrows elevated and amusement quirked his mouth. "Charles, since when do you call me sir ?"
      "It seemed appropriate today. I thought as long as we're all together, and Mrs. Walcott is feeling so well, and Fanny's just arrived and the mood is festive, I might as well add to it." He took Emily's hand and drew her against his side. "I want you all to know that I've asked Emily to be my wife and she's accepted … at last."
      Myriad reactions broke through Emily: a sinking sense of finality now that the announcement was made, contraposed by gladness at the pleased look on her mother's and father's faces, and amusement at Frankie's reaction.
      "Yippee! It's about time." Everyone in the room laughed and exchanged hugs. Josephine wiped a tear from her eye, and Papa clapped Charles on the arm and pumped his hand and gave him a solid thump on the back. Fannie kissed Charles's cheek and in the middle of it all someone knocked on the door downstairs.
      "Emileee?" It was Tarsy, calling to be heard above the happy voices "Can I come in?"
      Emily went to the top of the stairs and shouted, "Come in, Tarsy we're up here!"
      Tarsy appeared below, excited, as usual. "Is she here?"
      "Yes."
      "I couldn't wait to meet her!" She started up the steps. "Are all those bags outside hers?"
      "Every one. And she's exactly like her letters."
      Another devotee fell under Fannie's spell the moment introductions were performed. "But, of course," said Fannie, "Emily's friend, the barber's daughter, the girl with the prettiest hair in town. I've already been told to expect to see a lot of you around here." She laid a touch on Tarsy's golden curls, and gave the proper amount of attention before turning the focus back toward the recent announcement. "But you haven't heard Emily and Charles's news, have you?"
      "What?" Tarsy turned to her friend with a blank, receptive expression.
      "Charles has asked me to marry him and I've accepted."
      Tarsy reacted as she did to all excitement: giddily. She threw herself on Emily with nearly enough force to break bones, and went into raptures of oohs and gushes of felicitations; and overtook Charles next, kissing his cheek and exclaiming she knew they'd be sooooo happy and she was positively green with envy (which wasn't true, Emily knew); then threw her attention back to Fannie with amusing abruptness.
      "Tell me all about your ride on the stagecoach."
      Fannie told, and Tarsy stayed for supper, which turned out to be a picnic on Josephine's bed, at Fannie's insistence. She declared Joey was simply not to be left at the height of this celebration while the others went downstairs. They would bring the festivities to her.
      So Papa and Fannie and Frankie sat on the big bed while Emily, Charles, and Tarsy took Papa's cot and balanced their plates on their knees. They all supped on creamed peas over Fannie's swansdown biscuits and Frankie's latest catch, fried to the texture of a bootheel, for which Fannie laughingly refused to apologize: "The biscuits are perfection itself. The rest I'll get better at in time." And afterward Emily announced they'd all draw straws to see who'd help with dishes. Frankie lost and his mouth grew sulky. Fannie scolded, "Better get used to it, lad, because I intend to draw straws every night and you'll have to expect to draw the short one occasionally. Now let's get going and leave your father and mother a little time to themselves."
      Charles said he had an early day tomorrow and bid them good night, kissing Emily briefly on the mouth when she saw him out to the porch. But she was too impatient to linger long with Charles. Fannie was in the kitchen, and where Fannie was, Emily wanted to be.
      The girls let Frankie off the hook and said they'd do dishes tonight because Tarsy was nowhere near ready to go home and leave Fannie's magical