“Those days seem very far away to me now,” remarked Miriam Nesbit. “I feel as though I’d been grown up for ages.”
“I don’t feel a bit grown up. It seems only yesterday since I ran races and tore about our garden with Captain, our good old collie,” laughed Grace. “I’m like Peter Pan. I don’t want to, and can’t, grow up. And I shall never marry.” She glanced about her circle of friends with an almost challenging air. She looked so radiantly young and pretty in her dainty frock that simultaneously the thought occurred to them all, “Poor Tom.” Yet in their hearts, even to Mrs. Gray, they could find no fault with Grace’s straightforward words. If she were almost cruelly indifferent to Tom as a lover, she had the virtue at least of being absolutely honest. Even Mrs. Gray admired and respected her candor.
“Did you ever see anything more beautiful than Anne’s and Miriam’s bouquets?” broke in Miss Southard, with the intent of leading away from a not wholly happy subject.
Miriam held her bouquet at arm’s length and eyed it with admiration. It was composed of pale yellow orchids and lilies of the valley, while Anne’s was a shower of orange blossoms and the same delicate lilies.
“If you are determined never to marry, Grace, you won’t try to catch Anne’s bouquet,” smiled Mrs. Gray.
“Oh, yes, I shall,” nodded Grace. “I must do it because it’s hers. I always try to catch the bouquets at weddings. It’s good sport. So far, however, I’ve never secured one.”
“I shall throw this one directly at you,” promised Anne.
“Anne, child, the carriages are here,” broke in her mother’s gentle voice.
Anne laid her bouquet on the centre table. “Come and kiss Anne Pierson for the last time, girls.” She opened her arms. One by one they folded her in the embrace of friendship. Her sister and mother came last. As the arms that had held her in babyhood closed about her, Anne drew nearer to her mother in this, her hour of supreme happiness, than ever before, if that were possible.
It was not a long drive to the church. On the way there they stopped to pick up the two flower girls, Anna May and Elizabeth Angerell, two pretty and interesting children who lived next door to Grace, and of whom she and Anne had always been very fond. The little flower maidens were dressed in white embroidered chiffon frocks with pale yellow satin sashes and hair ribbons. They wore white silk stockings and white kid slippers and carried overflowing baskets of yellow and white roses.