The day Mr. Tescheron was to receive notification of the wedding in his immediate family came so quickly the announcement could not be made in the morning. Gabrielle needed the day to prepare, for while she was brave, the meeting with her father must bring tears of disappointment. Perhaps the glowering skies made postponement easy. Better the night for sorrow, thought she, and then hurried down-town, her hands full of small packages containing bits of finery not available to enter into the ornamentation of the dressmaker's conceptions in silk and lace. These must be exchanged for other shades, and the light of a cloudy day was not suitable for matching colors; her feminine mind turned to the more important details of preparation.
As she entered the office her thoughts were wholly away from the law of her country and its business operations. The gowns that were to be fitted and the untrimmed hats loomed larger than the intricate questions in various states of litigation that came under her supervision. In a week she was to pass from this realm of worldly detail, and would assume the larger rôle of wife, better equipped by freedom and the good uses she had made of its opportunities. Still the hats and gowns must not be ignored by any high-flown philosophy. She was about to hitch her wagon to a star, to be a whole woman, the head of a home and all that; but what would we think even of the president of Sorosis if she appeared in last year's sleeves?
Among her letters that morning, Gabrielle found one from Hygeia, and regretted that she must place it with her packages as soon as she glanced at the name, for there was no time to read it then; perhaps in a car she would find the time. Letters written at leisure in the country and read in the crowded city cars lose their native sweetness. Such as I have ever received from there must be opened tenderly and read slowly far from the throng.
By one o'clock the mills of Justice ceased to claim the attention of Gabrielle. Two hours were spent in the stores, every minute consumed in the closest study of fabrics, miles of floor-walking and volumes of questioning—all composing the art and science of shopping, the one sphere in which woman can carry the weight of a fur cloak and do a hundred-yard dash or a mile run to the most distant department, while her man companion takes his coat off and worms his way twenty feet to the necktie counter, which is always found opposite the main entrance. Ten feet farther in, it would fail. Gabrielle shopped with system, to save time, and then used the time she saved to shop some more.
Not long after three o'clock on that memorable Wednesday, Mrs. Gibson, Nellie and Gabrielle gathered around the enthroned Jim in his castle retreat to talk it all over again for the thousandth time.
"The wedding ring fitted the first time we tried it, and so do all my clothes, ties, gloves and hats," said Jim, with a smile intended to aggravate argument. "It is no trouble at all for me to get married."
"You're not original, though," laughed Nellie. "Originality, you know, takes time, thought and effort. Gabrielle will outshine you."
"Of course, she will," said Jim—"if there is anything left of the poor girl to wear these things."
"Oh, don't fear that, Jim," Gabrielle advised. "This is great fun."
"The stores always seem to be filled with women," remarked Jim. "Are they all about to get married, I wonder?"