"Look, mamma! 'Ria, did you ever, ever see such blue eyes?"
And then I sat and talked to the new sister, and asked her
"Where did she get her eyes of blue?"
But she did not answer, as the baby does in the song,—
"Out of the sky, as I came through."
"What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry spikes left in."
"Where did you get that pearly ear?
God spake, and it came out to hear."
Ah! If she could only have talked, wouldn't she have told some sweet stories about angels?
I couldn't have left her for anything else but that wedding; but Ruthie promised to take good care of her—and I could trust Ruthie! Ned wasn't going; there were to be no children but Fel and me. Well, yes, Gust was there; but that was because he happened to be in the house. The wedding was in Madam Allen's parlors. I stood up before the minister, with wax beads on my neck, and white slippers on my feet. Somebody else stood there, too; for one wouldn't have been enough. Fel dressed just like me—in white, with the same kind of beads; only she was pale, and I wasn't, and she looked like a white rosebud, and I didn't.
We stood between the "shovin' doors,"—that was what Gust called them,—and there was a bride and bridegroom, too. I nearly forgot that. I remember lights, and flowers, and wedding cake; and by and by Madam Allen came along, looking so grand in her white turban, and gave the bride a bridal rose, but not Fel or me a single bud. Then, when people kissed the bride, I kissed her, too, and she whispered,—
"Call me aunt Martha, dear."
"O, yes, Miss Rubie," said I; "you are my cousin, aunt Martha."