“But she has done it twice,” cried the other; “and see how it has come tumbling down again; it’s worse now than if it hadn’t been touched!”
“I don’t care; I shan’t try any more,” whimpered Nelly. “I can’t get dressed decent. But you’ll all have to wait for me; for I’m sure Charley Vining won’t go to be married if I ain’t there.”
“For goodness gracious’ sake, now just look there, Miss Nelly, at what you’ve been and done! You’ve pulled all the gathers out of my frock!”
“Don’t care!” said Nelly, throwing herself down, half-dressed, into a chair. “Fasten ’em up again: you’ve got lots of pins.”
“’Lisbeth—’Lisbeth!” was shouted from the passage, and the girl disappeared.
We have nothing to do with the bride’s mental sufferings at present, the remarks now made appertaining to dress alone; but she must have borne something at the hands of Miss l’aiguille and her staff of assistants, before, tall, dark, and handsome, she stood amidst a diaphanous cloud of drapery, which floated from and around her, descending, as it were, from the orange wreath twined amidst her magnificent raven ringlets.
Miss l’aiguille clasped her hands, and went down upon one knee in an ecstasy of admiration at the glorious being she had made, as a gentle chorus of “O!” and “O, miss!” was raised by her satellites; while, wonderful to relate, when she descended to the drawing-room, she was not the last, for two of the bridesmaids were not ready.
But Mrs Bray was there, gorgeous to behold, bearing upon her everything in the shape of costly dress that money would purchase. To describe her costume would be simply impossible, save to say that it was as solid-looking as her daughter’s was light and airy—the plaits and folds of her silken robe literally creaked and crackled as she moved, which was all of a piece. Colour there was too; but what, it would be impossible to say, the prevailing hue being warm scarlet, which was shed upon Mr Bray, whose white vest was so stiff and grand, that nothing could have been whiter and stiffer and grander, unless it was the tremendous cravat that held his head as if he was being garotted—symptoms of strangulation being really visible in the prominence of his eyes. But then, as he said, in regard to his sufferings, he did not have a daughter married every day.
“I should have liked for Mr Maximilian to have been here,” said Mrs Bray, as they were waiting for Nelly, who, now under the hands of Miss l’Aiguille, was being made up rapidly—her thin bony form growing quite graceful under the dressmakers fingers.
“Bless me, though, what is the matter?” cried Mrs Bray. “Laura my dear, pray don’t faint in those things, whatever you do!”