Emily turned her eyes, brilliant with the excitement of this night, toward Dade, who still stood with her head critically poised. Dade nodded.
The spell was broken, the chattering began again, and the girls swarmed about for gloves and bouquets, at last seating themselves impatiently to let the maids fasten their furred opera boots.
Emily still stood before the long pier glass, looking at her bridal reflection.
"'Something old and something new, Something borrowed and something blue?'"
The bridesmaids looked up with lips apart, awaiting the answer to this all-important question.
"My handkerchief is old," said Emily, holding in her fingers a bit of point lace that had been her mother's, "and--let's see--well, I'm pretty much all new to-night." She glanced down at her gown. "Something borrowed--I have nothing borrowed." She looked up soberly, her eyes wide.
"Something blue?" one of the girls asked, though the first question had not been disposed of.
"Yes, if you'd bean me, running all that blue baby-ribbon in her chemise, you'd think so," said Dade.
"But something borrowed," one of the others insisted.
"Yes, something borrowed," assented Emily. "What can I borrow, I wonder?" She looked about helplessly.
"Oh say, girls!" one of the bridesmaids exclaimed, "she must have a coin in her slipper!" And the whole bevy chorused its happy acquiescence. Emily, with the sudden air of a queen, unaccustomed to waiting on herself, commanded Dade:
Dade picked her way through the disorder of the room to the little dressing-table, with its candles lighted, adding their heat to the room. She looked, and found nothing. Then she flew from the room, crossed the hall, and returning, gave Emily a silver dime.
"I'll lend it to you," she said, "it'll be something borrowed, too."
It was all arranged. The bride glanced again in her mirror, turned about, inspected her train, preened herself like some white bird, ready for final flight. The old maid scanned the bride's face critically. It was radiant, but--
"It's hot as pepper in here anyway," one of the bridesmaids panted.
The old maid took a powder puff and touched the bride's face, touched the cheeks, and at last the forehead, where tiny drops of perspiration sparkled.