“Beautiful!”
“I mean my dress!”
“But I mean you! I don’t know anything about your dress except that it is blue as it should be.”
“Can you find your collar buttons and is your tie all right?” asked the anxious housewife as she accepted with very good grace the embrace Edwin felt was necessary to his happiness just then.
“Yes! Everything O. K.! I am sorry for the bride because you are so lovely, honey. Nance is a pretty girl but I am afraid nobody will see her because of the matron of honor.”
“Such a goose! Now I must go look after the flower girls. Katy has them coralled in the nursery where they can’t get dirty. They are the sweetest looking creatures you ever saw in your life. Dodo looks like a beautiful cabbage rose himself, his cheeks are so rosy. I wish Mother could see him.”
“Why doesn’t she come on to the wedding?”
“Sue needs her in Kentucky. The only trouble about Mother is that there is only one of her. I need her more than anything right now. If she were here she would take hold of this wedding breakfast and I would know it would come off right,” sighed Molly, who, true to her character, had planned to do enough for two persons. “Thank goodness, Judy is here!”
The ceremony was to be at twelve and then a wedding breakfast served. This meant Molly was to be very busy. The girls were helping, but at the same time they were more or less flustered trying to get themselves dressed all in one room. They had determined to make this a gay light wedding as to clothes at least. There was a feeling of excitement in every breast, excitement mingled with sadness. Was not this the most momentous day in the life of every true American? War was declared! Perhaps had they realized just what war meant, those girls could not have donned those gay, bright garments. Would they have had the courage to wish their friend God-speed so cheerily? I believe they would. They were of the stuff of the mothers of men. On that second of April, 1917, every woman in the United States must have felt somewhat as Molly Brown’s college friends felt. It was a feeling of excitement, awe, exhilaration and dread combined.
Nance was gowned in white with a wonderful lace veil Otoyo had brought as her present. It was as filmy as the clouds that rest on Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of Otoyo’s country.