idden from the
public gaze her wealth of rich, warm hair was not, and Eve's hair was
the delight and envy of every woman in Barnriff. Yes, they were all
very, very pleased with her, particularly as she, being a dressmaker
with all sorts of possibilities in the way of a wedding-dress within
her reach, had elected to wear a dress which any one of them could
have afforded, any one of them had possibly worn in her time.

The ceremony proceeded with due solemnity. The minister was all
sympathetic unction, and was further a perfect model of dignified
patience when Peter Blunt finally scrambled the ring into the
bridegroom's hand several lines later than was his "cue," but in time
to save himself from utter disgrace. And the end came emotionally, as
was only to be expected in such a community. Kate Crombie, being
leader of the village society, started it. She promptly laid her head
on Jake Wilkes' shoulder and sniveled. Nor was it until he turned his
head and fumbled out awkward words of consolation to her, that the
reek of stale rye warned her of her mistake, and she promptly came to
and looked for her husband to finish it out on.

Annie Gay wept happy tears, and laughed and cried joyously. Jane
Restless borrowed her man's bandana and blew her nose like a steam
siren, declaring that the heat always gave her catarrh. Carrie Horsley
guessed she'd never seen so pretty a bride so elegantly dressed, and
wept down the front of Eve's spotless lawn the moment she got near
enough. Mrs. Rust sniffed audibly, and hoped she would be happy, but
warned her strongly against the tribulations of an ever-increasing
family, and finally flopped heavily into a chair calling loudly for
brandy.

It was, in Doc Crombie's words, "the old hens who got emotions." It
was only the younger women, the spinsters, who laughed and flirted
with the men, giggling hysterically at the sallies ever dear at a
matrimonial function which flew from lip to lip. But then, as Pretty
Wilkes told her particular crony Mrs. Rust later on at the sociable--

"It was the same with us, my dear," she said feelingly. "Speaking
personal, before I was married, I'd got the notion, foolish-like, that
every man had kind o' got loose out of heaven, an' we women orter set
up a gilded cage around 'em, an' feed 'em cookies, an' any other
elegant fancy truck we could get our idiot hands on. They was a sort
of idol to be bowed an' scraped to. They was the rulers of our
destiny, the lord