The girl’s parcel was found to contain candy and a duck of a fan.
But Alice’s wedding things soon put everything else in the shade. The dainty sets of underwear with their complicated puffs and insertings, frilled petticoats, silk and muslin and poplin gowns, hats and parasols, lay in a rainbow colored heap on the bed and chairs.
“Alice,” said Marian, caressing some of the dainty lingerie, “who is going to iron all these puffs and ruffles? It would take hours to do them right, especially the petticoats.”
“I know, Marian–I asked Aunt Clara the same question. And do you know what I have done?”
Her audience looked interested.
“I just went down town the minute I got to Centerville and got some nice strong muslin and I’ve been making it up perfectly plain except for a tiny edge. They are heaps more comfortable–and I wear these others for best. Why, I couldn’t keep a maid and hurl all that stuff at her every week!”
“Are they wearing hoops pretty generally?” Mrs. Morton inquired as Alice laughingly held a pair up for inspection.
98“Yes, and bustles too. See this buff poplin with the panniers just has to have a bustle. Thank goodness they’re young yet, as Dick says, but I suppose they’ll keep on getting bigger.”
“Oh, I should think they’d be so hot and horrid.”
“They are, but the hoops are delightfully cool, only you have to be on your guard with the treacherous things or they swing up in front when you sit down, in a most mortifying fashion.”