The next day Miss Alice Fletcher received an engraved card requesting the pleasure of her company at the Gates-Morton nuptials. The tears stood in Alice’s eyes as she read it. “How dear of Marian!” she exclaimed.
Mrs. Morton had felt distinctly displeased at the arrival of the card, but the sight of the girl’s tears disarmed her. Instead of discouraging Alice from attending the wedding as she at first intended, she turned in and helped her arrange a dress for the occasion. She did, however, ask Chicken Little somewhat sternly if she had teased Marian to invite Alice.
The long parlors of the Gates home were fragrant with evergreen and hot-house flowers that wedding night when the Morton family arrived. Chicken Little had seen her brother’s trunk start for the station, and had admired his silk hat and white gloves as the hack called for him before the rest of the family were ready. She had promised Katy and Gertie to bring them a lot of wedding cake and to remember every single thing to tell them, but especially to find out whether Marian was dressed properly as a bride should be in “something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue.” Katy had discovered that this was absolutely necessary to a bride’s future happiness.
The something new was very apparent as Marian and Frank walked slowly down the long room between the lines of friends and relatives to the little bower where the minister stood waiting for them. Marian was all in shimmering silken white, but she wore no veil, and her glorious hair crowned a very sweet and earnest face. She carried a quaint little bouquet of pale tea roses and heliotrope framed formally in lacy white paper, and an exquisite lace handkerchief, whose slightly yellowed border betrayed that it was something old, even to Chicken Little’s childish eyes.
Frank held his head high and clasped Marian’s arm close as if he were a little afraid she might vanish at the last moment. Jane noticed that there were tears in her mother’s eyes and in Marian’s father’s and she felt worried lest it was because Marian had forgotten the “something borrowed” and “something blue.” She inspected her carefully the whole length of the parlors, but no hint of anything blue could she detect unless it was the heliotrope in the bouquet, and that she thought was surely lavender. Her mother wore a great deal of lavender. Perhaps, though, the handkerchief had been borrowed.
She forgot her anxiety for a few moments during the hush that attended the solemn rendering of the marriage service. She slipped clear out in front of everybody to see better, but Ernest pulled her back impatiently. When the last words were uttered and the minister extended his hand in congratulation, she slipped quietly around behind the bridal pair, to look Marian over at close range. Her brother caught sight of her.
“Come on, Chicken Little, and kiss your new sister. Why, what a solemn face!”
Marian hugged her up tight and Jane found courage to whisper, “You haven’t got anything blue on.”
Marian looked puzzled for an instant, then laughed heartily.
“Yes, I have, little sister, but don’t you tell—it’s a blue garter. And my handkerchief is old and borrowed from my mother. It was her wedding handkerchief—so you see it’s all right. I’m glad you wished me to be just right.”