"Heavens!" cried the young girl, after she had finished Mary and opened the large purple box. "Oh, Mary, this bunch is big enough for three people."
"It's only intended for one, and that's you," laughed the other.
The bouquet was indeed as large as a soup plate.
"I don't think I'd better wear them to dinner. I couldn't see over them. I should feel as if I were carrying a violet bed on my chest."
"And so you are. No doubt it took all the violets from one large double bed for that bunch. But you had better wear them at first, and take them off at the table. Brother Willie is one of the touchiest young persons imaginable. Father and I have always called him 'the sensitive plant.'"
Hastily Molly pinned on the enormous bunch, which covered the entire front of her dress.
"They are coming now," she said, hearing steps in the next room; and, peeping through the door, she beheld "Brother Willie" himself, resplendent in his evening clothes, in company with two other equally resplendent beings, all wearing white gardenias in their buttonholes.
"My goodness, they look like a wedding!" Molly whispered to her friend.
"Aren't they grand?" laughed Mary. "And here I am as plain as an old shoe, and never will be anything else."
"You are the finest thing I know," exclaimed Molly, tucking her arm through her friend's and allowing herself to be led rather timidly into the living room.