"Helloa! Snowing! We're going to have a white wedding, Thora!" and with a nervous laugh he buttoned up his coat collar and went off without kissing her.
She remembered this again when she was going to bed, and, sitting on the great chair before the cheerful stove, with the curtains drawn and all so sweet and cozy, she reflected that it was the last time she was to sleep in her father's house. The three weeks were almost gone at last, and so was her girlhood; and now that both were nearly over they seemed to have vanished like a dream. She was happy still, but it would have taken very little to turn her happiness into pain. It was a pity Oscar had forgotten to kiss her, and it was a pity Magnus would not be present at the wedding.
Toward the mirk of night she went to bed, and then the snow was still falling. She thought of Magnus traveling over the desert, and wondered why he had gone away just then. Perhaps it was because he could not bear to look upon their happiness--hers and Oscar's! Poor Magnus!
But the memory of Magnus was whirled away in a cloud of other thoughts--the wedding, the wedding presents, the wedding-feast, and Oscar, always Oscar--and then the tired eyelids of her mind closed in peace and good-will with all the world, and she slept the last sleep of her maidenhood.
IX
"Thora! Thora! Well, I declare! The girl is still sleeping!"
"On her wedding-day, too. Thora! Thora!"
Thora awoke with a start at the calling and knocking at her door. Leaping out of bed she ran to the window and parted the curtains. It was broad morning, the sun was shining brightly over the snow, and all the world was white.
She opened the door, the sewing-maids and dressmakers trooped into the room, and from that moment onward for several hours the universe was a chaos without form and void, in which all talked at once and everybody ran up against everybody else, and Thora ate her breakfast while walking about or being "fitted on."
But the dress and the dressing were finished at length, and Aunt Margret was called up to look. Nobody in Iceland had ever seen such a bridal costume--the silk kirtle, the silver-gilt crown, the faldur, the veil, and the blue plush cloak.