“No; her sister. I had it straight.”
Anderson went out. Everything was wonderful outside. The world was purified of dust and tarnish as a soul of sin. The worn prosaicness of nature was adorned as with jewels. Everything glittered; a thousand rainbows seemed to hang on the drenched trees. New blossoms looked out like new eyes of rapture; every leaf had a high-light of joy. Anderson drew a long breath. The air was alive with the breath of the sea from which the fresh wind blew. He walked home with a quick step like a boy. He was smiling, and fast to his breast, like a beloved child, he clasped his dream again.
Chapter XVI
There had been considerable discussion among the ladies of the Carroll family with regard to the necessary finery for Ina's bridal.
“It is all very well to talk about Ina's being married in four weeks,” said Anna Carroll to her sister-in-law, one afternoon directly after the affair had been settled. “If a girl gets married, she has to have new clothes, of course—a trousseau.”
“Why, yes, of course! How could she be married if she didn't have a trousseau? I had a very pretty trousseau, and so would you if you had been married, Anna, dear.”
Anna laughed, a trifle bitterly. “Good Lord,” said she, “if I had to think of a trousseau for myself, I should be a maniac! The trousseau would at any time have seemed a much more difficult matter than the bridegroom.”
“Yes, I know you have had a great many very good chances,” assented Mrs. Carroll, “and it would have seemed most of the time much easier to have just managed the husband part of it than the new clothes, because one doesn't have to pay cash or have good credit for a husband, and one does for clothes.”
“Well,” said Anna Carroll, “that is the trouble about Ina. It was easy enough for her to get the husband. Major Arms has always had his eye on her ever since she was in short dresses; but what isn't at all easy is the new clothes.”
“I don't see why, dear.”