‘Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something blue.’
And you see Miss Jane, that’s all of them. Oh, there goes the music——”
Before she finished talking, Jean and Margie had started. As soon as they turned the landing, Dottie and Mimi fell in to the measured step. Holding their bouquets tightly against them and counting, listening carefully for the accent of the music and—trying to go slowly—the bridesmaids descended to the living room. Their tiny high heels made prints on the soft satin laid over the carpet. Everything inside Mimi was singing with Sue’s violin and the piano. Again her magic trail of beauty stretched out before her. When the final triumphant cords sounded and Miss Jane paused for one moment at the head of the stairs Mimi almost ceased to breathe. It was all too perfectly thrilling. Her Miss Jane could have stepped out of fairyland.
The ceremony, the reception and going away were events of a dream to Mimi. She moved here and there and yet had no part in it. She kissed the groom. She shrieked with glee when she bit down on the ring in her piece of wedding cake. She hugged Miss Millie with the rest as Millie’s long arms caught Miss Jane’s bouquet which she tossed over the stairs when she ran up to put on her going away ensemble. She threw rice and rice and rice. Then all too soon it was over and the last car was disappearing down the driveway.
Mother and Daddy stood on the steps waving. Mimi was between them a step below. She could not see the long look they gave each other over her head which meant that some day, not so very many years away, their own daughter would be going down the same driveway, a bride.
CHAPTER III
“SHERIDAN, MY SHERIDAN”
A cannibal king
With a big nose ring
Once loved a Zulu maid;