I’ll be only one of the procession, and you know that dress is becoming all right! Who’s to notice what I have on? And when the wedding comes off I’ll be so grandly dressed nobody will remember what I had on at rehearsal. I’m certainly glad Sydney insisted on furnishing all the dresses for her bridesmaids.”
“But you’re the maid of honor, dear. Your dresses should be all right on both occasions. We don’t want your friends to think we couldn’t see that you are dressed suitably.”
“Now, mother!” Rae had said. “This thing is decided, I tell you. I simply won’t have a cent spent on me for this wedding. I’m saving up for a lot of things when the present set are worn out. So there! Don’t you try to cross me, mother, for it won’t do a bit of good. Besides, I’ve talked it all over with Sydney, and she thinks I’m right, and says the mulberry velvet will be lovely!”
Rae saw the whole scene in her mind’s eye as she stood there patting the new dark blue taffeta. She saw that troubled look in her mother’s face, the premonition of giving in to her arguments and then her brother Link’s face as he looked up.
“Hi! What’s all this economy talk, I’d like to know? Don’t you women know that there are times to economize and times when it’s all wrong, as the woman said who paid ten cents carfare to run down to a cheaper market and buy three pounds of meat at a cent less a pound than she could have got it next door. Say, McRae, I’ve got a job, didn’t you know it? Hadn’t you heard that yet? I’m going to buy you a new dress. Size fourteen, isn’t it? I heard you say so the other night. Now, don’t let’s hear another word about this. I’ll attend to that dress. I guess I’m not going to let my sister go to a party in a lousy dress when everybody knows I’ve got a well-paying job. Now, stop all this chatter. I want to read the paper!”
They had laughed cheerfully and Link had returned to the paper. Nothing more had been said about the dress and Rae thought Link had been just fooling, and everybody was satisfied. She hadn’t thought about it again herself either, for she was quite satisfied to wear the velvet dress.
And then the very next day the delivery man from one of the most exclusive stores in the city had delivered a great white box for Miss McRae Silverthorn, and there had been the dress, the lovely dark blue taffeta, with a long sweeping skirt, cut in the very latest lines, with a darling fluffy little ruching edged with a minute line of real lace. It was just perfect! And to think of a young man selecting it! Dear old Link! He must have paid a whole month’s salary for it!
Wear it? Of course she would. It was wonderful of Link, and she loved the dress doubly because he had bought it for her. He oughtn’t to have done it of course, but she mustn’t discount it even by reproaching him for spending so much money.
And her mother was as pleased as Link was, and so was her father.
Rae had tried on the lovely garment and it had been voted a perfect fit.
“Look who bought it!” swelled Link with satisfaction. They couldn’t make him tell who had helped him.
“Nobody!” he said. “I just told the gal I wanted the latest thing in dinner gowns for my sister who was just out of college, and had blue eyes and a pink complexion all her own, no lipstick, and she wore size fourteen, and I wanted a pretty nice one for a swell event, and that’s what she brought me! I don’t see why women make so much fuss about shopping! It didn’t take me fifteen minutes to get that dress!”
They had laughed a good deal about it, and Rae had cried in secret over the dear funny way her brother talked about it. He had always been that way about her, doing nice funny things on the sly in his boyish way. She loved the way he looked at her with that comical twinkle in his eyes, just the way father looked at mother sometimes, only a lot more condescending.
So Rae Silverthorn stood and looked at her lovely new dress with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, and loved her dear family.
Then suddenly there came a tap at the door. That would be Thelma of course, come to insist that she would press her dress. But her dress didn’t need pressing.
“Come in,” she said with a smile, still holding the closet door with one hand. Thelma would like to see her dress. Thelma would admire it and love it.
But the girl who entered was not Thelma. It was Minnie Lazarelle, a quasi third or fourth cousin of Sydney’s whom Sydney had never liked. They had never been very close, but occasionally she had been at the Hollis home when Rae had been there, and back in their younger days she had gone to high school with them for a few weeks before her family moved to another state. She was always an annoyance wherever she turned up and somehow she seemed to have uncanny ways of turning up. Even when everybody thought the Lazarelles had moved to a distant city, Minnie would arrive whenever there was anything unusual going on and say she had come to stay for the weekend. And somehow there was never an adequate reason for sending her away.
But Sydney had rejoiced several days ago at the fact that Minnie had moved to the far west and would not be at her wedding. “For of course we shall not invite her. There would be no reason to invite her, you know, even if she were in this part of the country, for we have never been close at all, and I’m only inviting my dearest most intimate friends. The relationship between us is so very slight, only by marriage, and a ‘step’ at that. Yet I’m positive if Minnie were in this neighborhood she would be certain to appear. She always has.”
So it was with a startled face that Rae greeted the newcomer.
“Oh! Is that you, Minnie! Why I thought they said you were in the west.”
“Yes, I was,” drawled the girl coming in and closing the door behind her, “but you couldn’t think that I would stay there and let dear Cousin Sydney get married without me, as close as we’ve always been, could you? Not I. I would have come home from Europe to be at this function.”
“Oh!” said Rae looking blankly at the girl, and noticing for the first time that Minnie was wearing an elaborate though rather shabby kimono of scarlet satin embroidered in fuzzy dragons that were much the worse for wear, and her hair was adorned with metal curlers. “When did you arrive? This morning? Does Sydney know you’re here?”
“Oh, no, I just came in about five minutes ago, and I’m such a wreck I came in search of a bath. I’ve traveled day and night to get here in time. There was an accident on the road ahead of my train and we had all kinds of delays. I’m simply filthy. I came over here to see if anyone was in this room. I can’t abide the room that dumb Thelma put me in, the little old nursery at the end of the hall. The bathroom is across the hall, and the tub is so short one can’t lie down in it and thoroughly relax. I like this bathroom so much better. You won’t mind if I come in and take a scrub, will you?”
“Why—of course—come,” said Rae trying to be pleasant. She didn’t enjoy the prospect because Minnie wasn’t at all neat and was apt to leave smears of face cream and lipstick around in the most unexpected places, but of course she couldn’t say no, and really it wasn’t in Rae’s sunny nature to be cool or disagreeable to anyone, much as she might dislike them. “I was just about to lie down and take a little nap, so help yourself.”
“How sweet of you,” said Minnie condescendingly. “Nice you got here in time to choose the best room!” Minnie smiled her old catty smile.
“Oh,” said Rae laughing, “I didn’t choose my room. This is where Thelma brought me. This is where she said Sydney wanted me to be.”
“Yes,” said Minnie with a toss of her head, “you always were one of her favorites! Well, it’s all right of course, even if I am a relative. A relative always expects to take second place! And of course she didn’t know I was coming. She’ll be awfully surprised when she finds it out. Say, do you happen to know who is to be here tonight?”
Minnie dropped nonchalantly down on the edge of the bed, one shabby slipper clacking against the hardwood floor as she swung her foot idly.
“Why, no, I don’t know that I do,” said Rae, standing by the bureau and arranging