And she held herself so like her, shoulders back, and making that little nervous sniffle with her nose, like Miss Bray makes when she’s excited, that once I had to wink at her to stop.
The groom didn’t look like Dr. Rudd. But she wore men’s clothes, and that’s the only way you’d know some men were men, and almost anything will do for a groom. Nobody noticed him.
We were getting on just grand, and I was marrying away, telling them what they must do and what they mustn’t do. Particularly that they mustn’t get mad and leave each other, for Yorkburg was very old-fashioned and didn’t like changes, and would rather stick to its mistakes than go back on its word. And then I turned to the bride.
“Miss Bray,” I said, “have you told this man you are marrying that you are two-faced and underhand, and can’t be trusted to tell the truth? Have you told him that nobody loves you, and that for years you have tried to pass for a lamb, when you are an old sheep? And does he know that though you’re a good manager on little and are not lazy, that your temper’s been ruined by economizing, and that at times, if you were dead, there’d be no place for you? Peter wouldn’t pass you, and the devil wouldn’t stand you. And does he know he’s buying a pig in a bag, and that the best wedding present he could give you would be a set of new teeth? And will you promise to stop pink powder and clean your finger-nails every day? And—”
But I got no further, for something made me look up, and there, standing in the door, was the real Miss Bray.
All I said was—“Let us pray!”—Abridged from “Mary Cary,” copyrighted by The Century Company, New York, and used by the kind consent of author and publisher.
A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR A LADY
By Myra Kelly
It was the week before Christmas, and the First-Reader Class had, almost to a man, decided on the gifts to be lavished on “Teacher.” But Morris Mogilewsky, whose love for Teacher was far greater than the combined loves of all the other children, had as yet no present to bestow. The knowledge saddened all his hours and was the more maddening because it could in no wise be shared by Teacher, who noticed his altered bearing and tried with all sorts of artful beguilements to make him happy and at ease. But her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his love. And he loved her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes had clung for a breath’s space to her “like man’s shoes” and had then crept timidly up to her “light face,” she had been mistress of his heart of hearts. That was more than three months ago. And well he remembered the day!
His mother had washed him horribly, and had taken him into the big, red schoolhouse, so familiar from the outside, but so full of unknown terrors within.