“Oh, we shouldn’t have minded that; and as it is, of course, we’ll turn you out nice. You’ll wear one of your other new dresses; won’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know; just what I’m to travel in. It isn’t very old. Do you know, after all, I’m not sure that it isn’t a great deal better.”
“I suppose it will be the same thing in the end,” said the younger Miss Foster.
“Of course it will,” said the elder.
“And there won’t be all that bother of changing my dress,” said Nora.
Frederic F. Frew came out to Plumstock by an early train from Liverpool, bringing with him a countryman of his own as his friend on the occasion. It had been explained to the friend that he was to come in his usual habiliments.
“Oh, nonsense!” said the friend, “I guess I’ll see you turned off in a new waistcoat.” But Frederic F. Frew had made it understood that an old waistcoat was imperative.
“It’s something about the cotton, you know. They’re all beside themselves here, as though there was never going to be a bit more in the country to eat. That’s England all over. Never mind; do you come just as if you were going into your counting-house. Brown cotton gloves, with a hole in the thumbs, will be the thing, I should say.”
There were candles on the table when they were all assembled in the parsonage drawing-room previous to the marriage. The two gentlemen were there first. Then came Mrs. Granger, who rather frightened Mr. Frew by kissing him, and telling him that she should always regard him as a son-in-law.
“Nora has always been like one of ourselves, you know,” she said, apologisingly.