They were spinning up the avenue, through a city humming with the first reviving breath of winter. They were at the great hotel, and Rachael was laughing in Elinor Vanderwall's embrace. The linen shop, the milliner, a dinner absurdly happy, and one of the new plays--a sunshiny morning when she and Elinor breakfasted in their rooms, and opened box after box of gowns and hats--the hours fled by like a dream.
"Nervous, Rachael?" asked Miss Vanderwall of the vision that looked out from Rachael's mirror.
"Not a bit!" the wife-to-be answered, feeling as she said it that her hands, busy with long gloves, were shaking, and her knees almost unready to support her.
"It must be wonderful to marry a man like Greg," said the bridesmaid thoughtfully. "He simply IS everything and HAS everything--"
"Ah, Elinor, it's wonderful to marry the man you love!" Rachael turned from the mirror, her blue eyes misted with tears under the brim of her wedding hat.
"YOU!" Elinor smiled. "That I should live to see it! You--in love!"
"And unashamed, and proud of it!" Rachael said with a tremulous laugh. "Are you all ready? Shall we go down?" She turned at the door and put one arm about her friend. "Kiss me, Elinor, and wish me joy," said she.
"I don't have to!" asserted Miss Vanderwall, with a hearty kiss nevertheless, "for it will be your own fault entirely if there's ever the littlest, teeniest cloud in the sky!"
END OF BOOK I
BOOK II