wever quiet it
is. What? Besides, I owe them something, and it will be an excuse to
give them their kit--white muslin and blue ribbons. That's how young
girls used to dress when I was a lad, and I've never seen anything to
touch it. There will be no trouble about the dresses, madam. I've
decided all that. You just tell me the name of a dressmaker--a tip-top
dressmaker, mind you--and we'll send in the order at once."

The bride-elect turned to her friend with a somewhat horrified
expression, but Nan flashed a reassuring smile, and adroitly turned the
subject in another direction.

"Don't worry!" she whispered, the first time that there was an
opportunity for a quiet word. "The General shall have his way, and
everything shall be charming into the bargain. I know of a dressmaker
who could make sackcloth elegant. She will manufacture even the hat
with blue feathers, so that you will never have had anything so becoming
in your life. Fortunately the General does not confine you to one shade
of blue. And the muslins and blue ribbons will be wonderful filmy
creations, as different from the Early Victorian stiffnesses as anything
you can possibly imagine. How Betty will enjoy herself!"

Betty did! In all the course of her eighteen years, it was the first
occasion on which she had been provided with an outfit with no regard to
money, but simply to what would be prettiest and most becoming. The
dress, the hat, the shoes, the gloves, the basket of pale-hued roses,
were all perfect of their kind, and, to crown all, on the morning of the
wedding there arrived two small morocco boxes, which, being opened,
displayed two miniature gold watches, encircled with turquoise, and
provided with blue enamel bows, by which they could be attached to the
dress. Jill's whoops of delight might have been heard half-way across
the Square. There seemed nothing left to wish for in life, now that the
long-dreamed-of "real gold" watch was actually in her grasp.

And so Terence Digby took Alice Beveridge to wife, for better for worse,
for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death did them
part; and more than one spectator prayed fervently that the hour of
separation should be long delayed, so that the reunited lovers might
enjoy a peaceful golden summer.

They drove away from the church door, and when the bride thrust her
blue-feathered toque out of the window to smile a radiant farewell, Nan
Vanburgh nodded her pretty h