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Page 4
"I know it; so we must do it in the cheapest way, and make the cake
ourselves. I have Aunt Izzy's recipe, which is a very good one; and if we
all take hold, it won't be such an immense piece of work. Debby has
quantities of raisins stoned already. She has been doing them in the
evenings a few at a time for the last month. Mrs. Ashe knows a factory
where you can get the little white boxes for ten dollars a thousand, and I
have commissioned her to send for five hundred."
"Five hundred! What an immense quantity!"
"Yes; but there are all the Hillsover girls to be remembered, and all our
kith and kin, and everybody at the wedding will want one. I don't think it
will be too many. Oh, I have arranged it all in my mind. Johnnie will
slice the citron, Elsie will wash the currants, Debby measure and bake,
Alexander mix, you and I will attend to the icing, and all of us will cut
it up."
"Alexander!"
"Alexander. He is quite pleased with the idea, and has constructed an
implement--a sort of spade, cut out of new pine wood--for the purpose. He
says it will be a sight easier than digging flower-beds. We will set about
it next week; for the cake improves by keeping, and as it is the heaviest
job we have to do, it will be well to get it out of the way early."
"Sha'n't you have a floral bell, or a bower to stand in, or something of
that kind?" ventured Clover, timidly.
"Indeed I shall not," replied Katy. "I particularly dislike floral bells
and bowers. They are next worst to anchors and harps and 'floral pillows'
and all the rest of the dreadful things that they have at funerals. No, we
will have plenty of fresh flowers, but not in stiff arrangements. I want
it all to seem easy and to _be_ easy. Don't look so disgusted, Clovy."
"Oh, I'm not disgusted. It's your wedding. I want you to have everything
in your own way."
"It's everybody's wedding, I think," said Katy, tenderly. "Everybody is so
kind about it. Did you see the thing that Polly sent this morning?"
"No. It must have come after I went out. What was it?"
"Seven yards of beautiful nun's lace which she bought in Florence. She
says it is to trim a morning dress; but it's really too pretty. How dear
Polly is! She sends me something almost every day. I seem to be in her
thoughts all the time. It is because she loves Ned so much, of course;
but it is just as kind of her."
"I think she loves you almost as much as Ned," said Clover.
"Oh, she couldn't do that; Ned is her only brother. There is Amy at the
gate now."
It was a much taller Amy than had come home from Italy the year before who
was walking toward them under the budding locust-boughs. Roman fever had
seemed to quicken and stimulate all Amy's powers, and she had grown very
fast during the past year. Her face was as frank and childlike as ever,
and her eyes as blue; but she was prettier than when she went to Europe,
for her cheeks were pink, and the mane of waving hair which framed them in
was very becoming. The hair was just long enough now to touch her
shoulders; it was turning brown as it lengthened, but the ends of the
locks still shone with childish gold, and caught the sun in little shining
rings as it filtered down through the tree branches.
She kissed Clover several times, and gave Katy a long, close hug; then
she produced a parcel daintily hid in silver paper.
"Tanta," she said,--this was a pet name lately invented for Katy,--"here
is something for you from mamma. It's something quite particular, I think,
for mamma cried when she was writing the note; not a hard cry, you know,
but just two little teeny-weeny tears in her eyes. She kept smiling,
though, and she looked happy, so I guess it isn't anything very bad. She
said I was to give it to you with her best, _best_ love."
Katy opened the parcel, and beheld a square veil of beautiful old blonde.
The note said:
This was my wedding-veil, dearest Katy, and my mother wore it
before me. It has been laid aside all these years with the idea
that perhaps Amy might want it some day; but instead I send it
to you, without whom there would be no Amy to wear this or
anything else. I think it would please Ned to see it on your
head, and I know it would make me very happy; but if you don't
feel like using it, don't mind for a moment saying so to
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