“I t’ought I’d carry this here,” she said shyly.
I opened the book. And my eye fell on these words written in letters which looked as if they had been dropped on the page from a sieve:—
There may be sugar and there may be spice
But you are the one I shall ever call nice.
It was an autograph album.
“Why, Katinka,” I said, “what for?”
“Well,” she explained, “I know in the fashion pictures brides allus carries books. I ain’t got no other book than what this is. An’ this was mother’s book—it’s all of hers I’ve got—and I t’ought—”
“Carry it, child,” I said, and little Katinka went down the stairs with the album for a prayer-book.
And lo! as the door opened my heart was set beating. For there was music; the reed organ in the parlour was played furiously; and I at once realized that Pelleas was presiding, performing the one tune that he knows: The long-meter doxology.
The parlour blinds were open, the geraniums had been brought up from the cellar to grace the sills, and as crowning symbol of festivity Cousin Diantha had shaken about the room a handkerchief wet with cologne. Miss Waitie had contributed the presence of her best dress. Andy, blushing, waited by the window under the transferred wedding bell of dragons, pretending to talk with the parson and continually brushing imaginary flies from before his face. When he saw Katinka he changed countenance and fairly joined in the amazed “Ah!” of the others. Indeed the parson began the ceremony with Andy’s honest eyes still reverently fixed on Katinka’s gown.