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.

There was not only clothing, but blankets and quilts and bed linen, though we were to live in her old home, which was already well supplied. One would suppose that a large and sudden increase of family was expected at once. These things annoyed me as senseless, and as absorbing so much of my Bessie’s attention that we didn’t have half the blissful times together that we had before our engagement was an acknowledged thing. But I knew that it was the mother’s doings. Bessie did not really have any foolish care for dress, though always beautifully arrayed without any apparent effort; but she supposed it was the proper thing, and submitted to her mother.

But there was one thing I set my heart on. I wanted a quiet wedding, without display or pretence. It did seem to me that this was a private occasion in which the wishes of the persons chiefly concerned should be consulted. It was their business and should be conducted in their own way. Bessie sympathized with me, and wanted of all things to go to church quietly and privately, and then, after a leave-taking with a few intimate friends at home, start right off on our proposed trip to the White Mountains. But no; we were inexperienced, and the widow knew what the occasion demanded much better than we did. She was a little grand in her ideas, and felt the importance of keeping on good terms with society. I was disposed to apply profane epithets to society, and to insist that this marriage was mine and Bessie’s, and nobody’s else. But what was the use? There would be unpleasant feelings, and the mamma must be conciliated, and so I yielded after a warm but altogether affectionate little controversy with Bessie.

Every time I came to the house now, I was informed of some new feature which Mrs. P. had decided upon as indispensable to the gorgeousness of the occasion.

“Have you ordered your dress suit yet?” she asked one evening.

“Dress suit? Oh yes. I had almost forgotten that.”“And, by the way, those cards? I think you had better send them out: you write such a good, legible hand.”

“Y-e-s, oh yes. With pleasure.”

“When you go to the city to-morrow, I wish you would drop in at Draper’s and get me a few little things. I have made out a list, so it won’t be any trouble to you.”

“No trouble at all. Glad to do it.”

“That white ribbon should be medium width. And before I forget it, have you written yet to your friend De Forest about his standing up?”

“No, I forgot it. I’ll drop him a line to-morrow. But what do you want that ribbon to be so long for?”

“That is to be held across the aisle by the ushers, you know, to keep off the ignobile vulgus. You and Bessie will march up here, you see, preceded by the four ushers and the bridesmaids and groomsmen, who will then range themselves off this way. The members of the families and the friends will be separated from the other people thus. It’s very pretty. Belle Graham was married that way at St. Thomas’s, and everybody said it was splendid.”This is the kind of talk I had to listen to for weeks, and is it any wonder that I grew thin and had sleepless nights?

I was now a mere puppet in the hands of Mrs. Pinkerton, and came and went as she pulled the wires. She had arranged that the affair was to take place in “her church”—and a very fashionable temple of worship it was. Her rector was to officiate, assisted by the vealy young man who had just graduated from the theological seminary. There were to be four bridesmaids and an equal number of groomsmen and of ushers. I should have liked to have something to say about who should “stand up” with us, as Mrs. Pinkerton expressed it; but when I timidly suggested that some of my friends would be available for the purpose, I was taken aback to learn that the entire list had been made up and decided upon without my knowledge, and that only one of the groomsmen chosen was a friend of mine,—De Forest,—the others being young men whom the worthy Mrs. Pinkerton had selected from her list of society people. One of the young men was a downright fool, if I must call things by their right names, but he dressed to perfection; the remaining two I scarcely knew by sight, but I did know that one of them had seen the time when he aspired to occupy the place I was now filling in respect to the Pinkerton household: need I say more concerning my sentiments regarding him?

The ushers,—well, of course, they were the four young gentlemen who knew everybody who was anybody, and I could not object to them, considering that they charged nothing for their onerous services.

The bridesmaids were all old school friends of Bessie’s, and two of them were considered pretty, and the other two were stylish.

One of my keenest regrets was that Bessie’s brother George was away off in Paris, and could not grace the occasion with his superb presence; for he was a superb fellow in all respects, and I felt a true brotherly affection for him. Had he not introduced me to Bessie? Had he not always wanted me to become his brother-in-law?

The great day came at last. The town was full of the invited people, and the weather, so anxiously looked to on such occasions, was all that could be desired. My remembrance of the solemn events of that day is now rather misty. I remember the tussle De Forest and I had with my collar and cravat in the morning, and how he stuck pins into my neck, and wrestled mightily with his own elaborate toilet. I remember, and this very distinctly, how awfully tight were my new patent-leather boots, which caused me for the time being the most excruciating anguish. Beyond these, and similar minor things which have a way of sticking in the memory, all the rest is very much like a vivid dream. The close carriage whirling through the streets; a great crush of people, with here and there a familiar, smiling face; Bessie in her wedding-dress of white silk, with her long veil and twining garlands of orange blossoms; the bridesmaids, radiant in tarletan, with pretty blue bows and sashes; the long aisle, up which we marched with slow and reverent tread; the pealing measures of the Wedding Chorus; the dignified and fatherly clergyman; the vealy young assistant; the unction of the slowly intoned words of the marriage-service; the fumbling for the ring,—and through it all there rises, as out of a mist, the face of my mother-in-law, the presiding genius of it all, the unknown quantity in the equation of my married life, now begun amid the felicitations, more or less sincere, of a host of kissing, hand-shaking, smiling, chattering, good-natured aunts, uncles, cousins, and relatives of all degrees.