Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

Richard looked on approvingly. "That really begins to look like something," he said. "Looks like a white cloud. Even on old Sallie Jane you'd know it was a bridal outfit. You're a trump, Georgina, for rushing things through this way. Babe ought to be everlastingly grateful. But while it's 'Very nice for Mary Ann, it's rather hard on Abraham.' Do you realize I've only four more days left to spend in this old town? This wedding is knocking a whole quarter of it out of my calculations."

Something made me glance up. He was looking down at me so intently it flustered me. I found myself trying to pin the left sleeve into the right arm.

"I don't believe in these war weddings," he said almost fiercely. "Watt hadn't any right to ask her to marry him now and take such chances. Suppose he'd be killed?"

"She'd feel that he was hers, at any rate," I said between my teeth, still holding on to the paper of pins. "She'd have the memory of this wedding, and the few happy days to follow, and she'd have the proud feeling that she was the wife of a man who'd given his life bravely. She'd be giving something to the cause herself, a continuing sacrifice, for it would keep on all the rest of her life."

"But suppose he wasn't killed outright. Suppose he'd come back to her crippled or blinded or frightfully disfigured. He oughtn't to want to tie her for life to just a part of a man."

Then I took up for Babe so emphatically that I dropped the pins. "Then she'd be eyes to him and feet to him and hands to him—and everything else. And she'd glory in it. I would if I loved a man as Babe does Watson Tucker, though I don't see what she sees in him to care for."

"I believe you would," he answered slowly. Then after a long pause he added, "It certainly must make a difference to a man over there to know he's got somebody back home, caring for him like that!"

He left in a few moments, and I had to work harder than ever for I had slowed up a bit while we talked. The wedding was at four. I am sure I was the happiest one in the crowd, for not only was the dress done in time, it was pronounced a real "creation." Babe never looked so well in her life. Judith had worked some sort of miracle on her hair, and in that simple fluff of white tulle she was almost pretty.

Never did a Maid of Honor have less time for her own arraying. I hurriedly slipped into the same dress of rose-color and white that I wore the night of Richard's arrival, and put on the little pearl necklace that had been Barby's. When he came for me in his Cousin James' machine he brought a big armful of roses for me to carry. It made me awfully happy to have him say, "Many happy returns of the day" when he gave them to me, even when he laughingly confessed that he hadn't remembered the date himself. It was Judith who reminded them that the wedding day and my birthday were the same. Even so, it was nice to have the event marked by his lovely roses.

Despite all Judith's precautions we had a wild scramble to get all the little Dorseys corralled for a final dress review. Each one of them came up with some important article missing, which had to be hunted for. Then a sudden calm descended. We found ourselves at the door of the Church of the Pilgrims. We were going slowly, very slowly up the aisle to the solemn organ music, conscious of a white blur of faces on each side. The church was packed.