the ice cream containers are buried are already
standing in the shade of the areaway or in the back yard.

=LAST PREPARATIONS=

Back again in the drawing-room, the florist and his assistants are still
tying and tacking and arranging and adjusting branches and garlands and
sheaves and bunches, and the floor is a litter of twigs and strings and
broken branches. The photographer is asking that the central decoration be
finished so he can group his pictures, the florist assures him that he is
as busy as possible.

The house is as cold as open windows can make it, to keep the flowers
fresh, and to avoid stuffiness. The door-bell continues its ringing, and
the parlor maid finds herself a contestant in a marathon, until some one
decides that card envelopes and telegrams had better be left in the front
hall.

A first bridesmaid arrives. She at least is on time. All decoration
activity stops while she is looked at and admired. Panic seizes some one!
The time is too short, nothing will be ready! Some one else says the
bridesmaid is far too early, there is no end of time.

Upstairs everyone is still dressing. The father of the bride (one would
suppose him to be the bridegroom at least) is trying on most of his
shirts, the floor strewn with discarded collars! The mother of the bride
is hurrying into her wedding array so as to be ready for any emergency, as
well as to superintend the finishing touches to her daughter's dress and
veil.

=THE WEDDING DRESS=

Everyone knows what a wedding dress is like. It may be of any white
material, satin, brocade, velvet, chiffon or entirely of lace. It may be
embroidered in pearls, crystals or silver; or it may be as plain as a
slip-cover--anything in fact that the bride fancies, and made in whatever
fashion or period she may choose.

As for her veil in its combination of lace or tulle and orange blossoms,
perhaps it is copied from a head-dress of Egypt or China, or from the
severe drapery of Rebecca herself, or proclaim the knowing touch of the
Rue de la Paix. It may have a cap, like that of a lady in a French print,
or fall in clouds of tulle from under a little wreath, such as might be
worn by a child Queen of the May.

The origin of the bridal veil is an unsettled question.

Roman brides wore "yellow veils," and veils were used in the ancient
Hebrew marriage ceremony. The veil as we use it may be a substitute for
the flowing tresses which in old times fell like a mantle modestl