"
"Yes, you are quite right," said Mrs. Scudder, rising and shaking out a
splendid white brocade, on which bunches of moss-roses were looped to
bunches of violets by graceful fillets of blue ribbons. "This was my
wedding-dress," she said.
Little Miss Prissy sprang up and clapped her hands in an ecstasy.
"Well, now, Miss Scudder, really!--did I ever see anything more
beautiful? It really goes beyond anything _I_ ever saw. I don't think,
in all the brocades I ever made up, I ever saw so pretty a pattern as
this."
"Mr. Scudder chose it for me, himself, at the silk-factory in Lyons,"
said Mrs. Scudder, with pardonable pride, "and I want it tried on to
Mary."
"Really, Miss Scudder, this ought to be kept for _her_ wedding-dress,"
said Miss Prissy, as she delightedly bustled about the congenial task.
"I was up to Miss Marvyn's, a-working, last week," she said, as she
threw the dress over Mary's head, "and she said that James expected to
make his fortune in that voyage, and come home and settle down."
Mary's fair head emerged from the rustling folds of the brocade, her
cheeks crimson as one of the moss-roses,--while her mother's face assumed
a severe gravity, as she remarked that she believed James had been much
pleased with Jane Spencer, and that, for her part, she should be very
glad, when he came home, if he could marry such a steady, sensible girl,
and settle down to a useful, Christian life.
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