Alice looked from her own broad-soled street shoes to the high-heeled, misshapen things on her companion’s feet. The latter looked at them, too, with pride and affection. “I’m going to wear them at the wedding and I thought that, being they was so tight, I’d best break ’em in a little first.”
“I see,” and Alice moderated her own pace to the hobbling gait of the wedding slippers. Two miles seemed more of an undertaking now and she began to wonder if she had been rash in her suggestion. “I’ll carry it through,” she said to herself. “I know I can, and I won’t back down. We’ll get tired if we keep going without rests,” she said aloud. “So let’s walk ten minutes and then rest. You can tell by your watch.”
The bride brightened at the allusion to the great plated and chased timepiece suspended from a rhinestone dove very near to her breast-bone. “Steve give me that when we was first engaged,” she explained, and Alice smiled indulgently. “He give me my bracelet for Christmas, and all his friends give me bangles.” She jingled the thing proudly as she spoke. “There’s thirty-four of ’em.”
“Thirty-four friends! He must be a popular man!” said Alice.
“O, he is, awful. And he’s the handsomest! You just ought to see him.”
209“The garment of praise is settling into place without a wrinkle,” thought Alice. “I hope she won’t take it all, for I may need a corner of it myself, to console me for this abominable bag, and the tinkle of that bracelet. I suppose she would think it was finer than the jade one Mrs. Langdon gave me. And I wonder what she would think if she knew my necklace was under my dress, so it wouldn’t show in travelling. O, well, she’s a nice little thing, and I hope Steve will be good to her.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be all beat out helping me,” said the bride remorsefully, as they paused once more for a rest. “I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you, anyhow.”
“O, that’s all right,” and Alice seized the bag and bore it mightily forward.
“O, dear,” sighed the bride presently. “There’s somebody driving this way. I wish they was going the other, and would give us a lift.”
The black speck down the road, which here ran alongside the track, expanded rapidly, developing into a smart buggy with two good horses, and a man driving. He leaned forward as he neared them, and suddenly reined in the horses with a jerk.