"But it doesn't say girl, Babbie; it is when a man marries," said Phyllis.
"Misprint!" said Bab. "You ought to know what it is to have your sentiments perverted by a printer's error. That couplet plainly refers to the bride's agonies in the hands of the dressmakers; what would the man have to do with needles and pins? It is perfectly clear to me; but I don't mean to have any troubles begin that way. I'd rather be myself, ready to enjoy my new happiness, than be married all worn out and nervous as so many girls are, just for the sake of a few dresses more or less. People do make themselves so much bother in this world; it makes me ache to see them!"
"Hear, hear!" said Jessamy, applauding with two untrimmed hats she was holding like cymbals. "What a sensible wife Doctor Thomas Leighton is to have! However, I confess I agree with her—partly, at least."
"Well, I agree with her wholly," said Bab, impartially. "I want this last summer we are three girls together to be light-hearted and happy, with no bother we can possibly dodge."
Barbara's program was faithfully carried out. The Wyndhams would not go away because they clung to every day of the few left them of their life in the little apartment where happiness had found them out, and where they had blossomed from inexperienced girls into valuable women. Like the previous summer, when necessity had kept them in the city, they took their country air in small doses, making excursions into the surrounding fields, if fields can be said to surround New York which have to be reached through such long stretches of diminishing tenements.
In August the serious business of wedding preparations had to be faced; but both Jessamy and Barbara insisted on their being as simple as possible.
How and where to be married was a problem for two brides in one family, when that family lived in an apartment not large enough for their daily needs. It never occurred to the girls to be married separately. Indeed, Tom urged Phyllis to seize some youth—violently, if she must—and be married with the other two; because, he pointed out, it would not only be effective to marry them all at once, but save trouble in the future.
Poor Phyllis! She kept her feelings bravely hidden; but it was not easy for her to look forward to parting with Jessamy and Bab. Even though they were to be near by when they were established in their own little nests, Phyllis, and still more their mother, realized that they would never be again as fully their own girls. But Jessamy and Bab were so happy that it would have been cruel to have shown a shadow of regret. Besides, Mrs. Wyndham and Phyllis could not regret what was so certainly for the greater happiness of them all in the end.
Aunt Henrietta came out nobly. She returned from the sea-shore early in September, thus breaking up her custom of years' standing, and offered her big house for the wedding. "It is proper in every way that you should be married from my house, and have the reception and breakfast there," she said solemnly. "Your apartment is out of the question for such an occasion, and you must be married suitably to your father's social position."
"How about Madrina? I didn't think one could affect the standing of the saints in heaven by unsuitable marriages!" whispered Bab, the incorrigible, to Jessamy. But she answered her great-aunt dutifully, with sincere thanks for the kindness which was very unexpected and great from her.