“Look in that box on my dressing-table.”
Dade picked her way through the disorder of the room to the little dressing-table, with its candles lighted, adding their heat to the room. She looked, and found nothing. Then she flew from the room, crossed the hall, and returning, gave Emily a silver dime.
“I’ll lend it to you,” she said, “it’ll be something borrowed, too.”
It was all arranged. The bride glanced again in her mirror, turned about, inspected her train, preened herself like some white bird, ready for final flight. The old maid scanned the bride’s face critically. It was radiant, but—
“I’m red as a beet!” Emily pouted.
“It’s hot as pepper in here anyway,” one of the bridesmaids panted.
The old maid took a powder puff and touched the bride’s face, touched the cheeks, and at last the forehead, where tiny drops of perspiration sparkled.
“There now,” she said, with her last dab.
Emily turned to her with a final glance of questioning. The old dressmaker’s eye lighted at the sight of the young girl in her bridal dress. She took a step toward her, her thin, withered lips trembling. “May I—kiss you?” she asked, timidly.
And then, carefully, reverently, as she had crowned her with the veil, she approached, and kissed her. The eyes of the bridesmaids, in the emotion that weddings excite in girls, became moist with tears.