creeper outside the
door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, "Ready,
Fancy dearest?"

"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing
as it were for the first time that morning.

The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the
direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as
one:--not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him,
but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the
will of that apotheosised being--the Bride.

"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed
cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons.

Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth,
primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of newness,
and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut
to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion.

"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in
the glass, and flitting off.

"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you would,
of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn't!"

"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! Why,
what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a
bit."

"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself then!"
said Fancy.

"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, surveying
them all round.

"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched
Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself
that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property.

"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking off
his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the
company.

The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion
nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was.

"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!"
continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the whole
auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't seen such a fine swarm
for these ten years."

"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. "A'
excellent sign."

"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of
relief.

"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy.