“Well, you are a silly!” she exclaimed. “All you want is a gentle tear or two trickling down the side of your nose, enough to make your eyes blink but not enough to soak your veil or leave streaks. And there you gush like a waterspout, and damp your face so much the bridegroom’ll catch his death of cold when he kisses you! Stop it, Kate MacNeill,—it isn’t anybody’s funeral: why, weddings aren’t so very fatal; lots of folk get over them—leastways in America.”
“I can’t help it!” protested the weeping maid. “I never could be melancholy in moderation, and the way you speak you make me think it’s running a dreadful risk to marry anybody.”
“Well,” said Bud, “you needn’t think of things so harrowing, I suppose. Just squeeze your eyes together and bite your lip, and perhaps it’ll start a tear: if it don’t, it’ll look like as if you were bravely struggling with emotion. And then there’s the proud glad smile as you back out on Charles’s arm—give her your arm, Minnie,—the trial’s over, you know, and you’ve got on a lovely new plain ring, and all the other girls are envious, and Charles Maclean and you are one till death do you part. Oh, Kate, Kate! don’t grin; that’s not a smile, it’s a—it’s a railroad track. Look—” Bud assumed a smile that spoke of gladness and humility, confidence and a maiden’s fears,—a smile that appealed and charmed.
“I couldn’t smile like that to save my life,” said Kate in a despair. “I wish you had learned me that instead of the height of Popacatthekettle. Do you think he’ll be angry if I don’t do them things properly?”
“Who? Charles! Why, Charles’ll be so mortally scared himself he wouldn’t notice if you made faces at him, or were a different girl altogether. He’ll have a dull dead booming in his ears, and wonder whether it’s wedding-day or apple-custard: all of them I’ve seen married looked like that. It’s not for Charles you should weep and smile; it’s for the front of the house, you know,—it’s for the people looking on.”
“Toots!” said Kate, relieved. “If it’s only for them, I needn’t bother. I thought that maybe it was something truly refined that he would be expecting. It’s not—it’s not the front of a house I’m marrying. Tell me this and tell me no more—is there anything special I should do to please my Charles?”
“I don’t think I’d worry,” said Bud on reflection. “I daresay it’s better not to think of anything dramatic. If I were you I’d just keep calm as grass, and pray the Lord to give me a good contented mind and hurry up the clergyman.”
But yet was the maiden full of a consciousness of imperfection, since she had seen that day the bride’s-cake on view in the baker’s window,—an edifice of art so splendid that she felt she could never be worthy of it. “How do you think I’ll look?” she asked. And Bud assured her she would look magnificently lovely.
“Oh, I wish I did,” she sighed. “But I’m feared I’ll not look so lovely as I think I do.”
“No girl ever did,” said Bud. “That’s impossible; but when Charles comes to and sits up he’ll think you’re It: he’ll think you perfect.”