"Thomas," she protested while she smiled, "if you own up to any more things, I declare I believe I'll have to even up by telling you how old I am. And that's one thing a woman don't like to mention, except, of course, to her husband."
Two days later Diantha Sinclair was married at eight o'clock in the evening. The church was crowded. Wide-eyed girls took in every detail and dreamed of acting the star rôle on a similar happy occasion. Complacent matrons, in their Sunday best, exchanged voluble comments. The wedding party was a trifle late, and the guests were all early which gave opportunity for soul-satisfying gossip.
"Ain't those flowers lovely! I never saw anything to beat 'em except maybe, at Elder Larkins' funeral. They say Persis Dale went over to the Lakeview florist's in that car of hers and brought back flowers enough to fill a wash tub."
"Mis' West looks real nice in that new black silk. There's nothing like black for toning down a fat woman."
"There's Eddie Ryan in a dress-suit. Wonder if it's his'n or just borrowed. It hangs kind of baggy. Shouldn't wonder if his cousin up to Boston let him take his."
Annabel Sinclair's slight girlish figure was the center of interest until the entrance of the bridal party. She must have guessed how the tongues were wagging but her color did not fluctuate under the ordeal. At last Annabel had come to the point of assisting nature. The carmine had been applied with artistic restraint, and she had never looked lovelier, but her happiness in her beauty had vanished. To retain the admiration which was the breath in her nostrils, she must henceforth resort to artifice, covering up and hiding what would sooner or later be revealed in spite of her. She was not thinking of Diantha as she sat looking straight before her but only of her own hard fate.
"Annabel Sinclair might be the bride herself," remarked one kindly matron on the other side of the church. "Beats all how she keeps her looks."
"Ain't that a handsome dress, though," sighed her companion. "She had it made in the city. But Persis Dale made Diantha's dress, and somebody who saw it, told me it was the handsomest thing she ever clapped her eyes on. Persis Dale sets everything by that girl."
If the occupants of the pews enjoyed the long wait, not so Thad West. Pale and perspiring, he looked more like a patient about to be conveyed to an operating table, than a bridegroom on the threshold of his happiness.
"What do you s'pose is wrong, Scotty?" He clutched the arm of the friend selected to stand by him in this ordeal. "It's way past time."