“Miss Hester will have her laugh,” said Bridget, “but ’tain’t no laughin’ matter this job they’re putting through!”
“Now Bridget, you keep still,” expostulated Julie. “She has been scolding us all the evening,” to Dr. Ware, “and frightening poor Jack to death, hasn’t she, Jack? Jack came to bring Daddy’s paper, you know, which he prints in great style since Mr. Landor has given him a printing press, and when he found we were busy he begged so hard to come out to the kitchen and help that we just had to let him. He’s been helping Bridget cut paraffine paper into squares—for each piece of cake has to be wrapped separately before it goes into its box—and they have cut all the white ribbon into pieces the right length to tie around the boxes and now they’re uncovering the boxes and getting them ready for the cake as soon as the frosting dries. Jack has been invaluable, hasn’t he, Bridget?”
“Humph!” grunted Bridget, with whom, nevertheless, the boy was a prime favorite.
“Good heavens! Julie,” cried the Doctor, “does one little box of wedding-cake mean all that?”
“Two hundred do,” smiling, “but another time we’ll know better how to go at it.”
All during this conversation she and Hester had been bending over the big work-table making curious evolutions with frosting bags over the pieces of cake spread everywhere about the room. Presently Hester dropped her bag and sat down.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “I believe they are done—that part. Dr. Ware,” turning to him suddenly, “doesn’t it strike you as funny that instead of disporting ourselves gayly in the festivities of the town we should be wasting our youth and beauty—doesn’t that sound just like a book!—our youth and beauty over aggravating old things like these?” with a disgusted look at the wedding-cake. “You do not seem to laugh but I think it’s tremendously funny. Dear me!” to the air, reflectively, “how trying it must be to get on without a sense of humor!” Then with an entire change of tone, “We did want to go awfully, especially as we had a suspicion that some one might be there. I wonder,” dreamily, “if he was.”
“I fancy so,” said the Doctor, hardly knowing whether or not to take her seriously. “Come back with me now and find out.”