"With me? 'T wouldn't, neither. It'd be something fierce, an' I won't stand for it. I don't mind bein' buried in somethin' plain, but I won't get married in it. Ain't it hard enough as it is, without me havin' to feel more horrid than what I do already? I want something to make me feel better about it, and there ain't anything can do that except it's a dress I want myself."
Mr. Champneys capitulated, horse and foot.
"We will go to some good shop immediately after lunch, and you shall choose your own wedding-dress," he promised, resignedly, marveling at the psychology of women.
It was a very fine forenoon, with a hint of coming autumn in the air. Even an imminent bridegroom couldn't altogether dampen the delight of whizzing through those marvelous streets in a taxi. Then came the even more marvelous world of the department store, which, "by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches, in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel," put one in mind of the great fairs of Tyre when Tyre was a prince of the sea, as set forth in the Twenty-seventh Chapter of Ezekiel.
Nancy would have been tempted to marry Bluebeard himself for the sake of some of the "rich apparel" that obliging saleswomen were setting forth for her inspection. Getting married began to assume a rosier aspect, due probably to the reflection of the filmy and lacy miracles that she might have for the mere choosing. She would almost have been willing to be hanged, let alone married, in a pink-silk combination.
The saleswomen scented mystery and romance here. The girl was no beauty, but then, she was astonishingly young; and the old gentleman was very distinguished-looking—quite a personage. They thought at first that he was the prospective bridegroom; learning that he wasn't deepened the mystery but didn't destroy the romance. Americans are all but hysterically sentimental. Sentimentality is a national disease, which rages nowhere more virulently than among women clerks. Would they rush through the necessary alterations, set an entire force to work overtime, if necessary, in order to have that girl's wedding-dress at her hotel on time? Wouldn't they, though! And they did. Gown, gloves, veil, shoes, fan, everything; all done up with the most exquisite care in reams of soft tissue paper.
She was to be married on the noon of Wednesday. On Tuesday night Nancy locked her door, opened her boxes, and spread her wedding finery on her bed. The dress was a magnificent one, as magnificent a dress as a great store can turn out; its lines had been designed by a justly famous designer. There was a slip, with as much lace as could be put upon one garment; such white satin slippers as she had never hoped to wear; and the texture of the silk stockings almost made her shout for joy. Achilles was vulnerable in the heel: fly, O man, from the woman who is indifferent to the lure of a silk stocking!
Nancy got into her kimono and turned on the hot water in her bath. At Baxters' there had never been enough hot water with which to wash the dishes, not to mention Nancy herself. Here there was enough to scald all the dishes—and the people—on earth, it seemed to her. She could hardly get used to the delight and the luxury of all the hot water and scented soap and clean towels she wanted, in a bath-room all to herself. Think of not having to wait one's turn, a very limited turn at that, in a spotted tin tub set in a five-by-seven hole in the wall, with an unshaded gas-jet sizzling about a foot above one's head! The shower-bath was to her an adventure—like running out in the rain, when one was a child. She couldn't get into the tub, and slide down into the warm, scented water, without a squeal of pleasure.
She skipped back to her bedroom, red as a boiled lobster, a rope of damp red hair hanging down her back, sat down on the floor, and drew on those silk stockings, and loved them from a full heart. She wiggled her toes ecstatically.
"O Lord!" sighed Nancy, fervently, "I wish You'd fix it so's folks could walk on their hands for a change! My feet are so much prettier than my face!"