We went riding together, Bessie, Mrs. Pinkerton, and I, the day after this episode; and without any previous indication of an approaching thaw, that singular old lady began to talk freely about what should be worn at "the wedding," referring to it as though she had been the principal agent in bringing it about.
So it was that I brought my darling's mother around to consent, if not with a very good grace, still with apparent cheerfulness, and she at once took the direction of the nuptial preparations. I made a show of consulting her about many things, but she invariably gave me to understand that her experience and superior knowledge in such matters were not to be gainsaid. I was willing to leave to her all the fuss and frippery of preparing clothes for her daughter. It always seemed to me that she had clothes enough, and clothes that were good enough for married life. I couldn't understand why a young woman, on becoming a wife, should need a lot of new and elaborate dresses, such as she had never worn and never cared to wear, and an endless variety of under-garments of mysterious and incomprehensible make, with frills and fringes and laces and edgings, as if, up to that time, she had never had anything next to her precious person, except what was visible to the exterior world. And even assuming that she donned these things for the first time as parts of a manifold and complicated wedding garment, why should so much fine needle-work and delicate trimming be prepared to be stowed away out of sight of prying mortals, for whose vision women are presumed to dress themselves? Are they got up to show to friends and excite envy, and to fill the minds of other young people with a sense of the difficulties of getting married?
One day, when I happened in,--by accident, of course,--and the mother happened to be out on one of her many pilgrimages to town, Bessie took me up to her room in a half-frightened way, as if doing something that she was afraid was terribly improper, and showed me a bewildering profusion of these things, neatly tucked away in bureau drawers. I laughed outright, and asked her who was to see all that finery. She was vexed and bit her lip, and I was sorry and voted myself a brute. From that moment, I determined not to say a word about the clothes, except to express unstinted admiration.