Page:Betty Gordon in Washington.djvu/132

122 of her dressing gown so that it made a very respectable corpulency.

"I'll be the mother!" Esther began to pin up her hair, a dignity to which she secretly aspired.

"I'm your bridesmaid, Libbie," announced Betty, catching up the bride's train and beginning to hum the wedding march under her breath.

"If you will be silly idiots, I'm the minister," said Bobby, mounting the bed and leaning over the foot rail as if it were a pulpit.

The bride stopped short, nearly tripping up the devoted bridesmaid.

"I don't think you should make fun of ministers," she said, looking disapprovingly at her cousin. "It's almost wicked."

"I'd like to know how it's any more wicked than to pretend a wedding," retorted Bobby wrathfully. "Weddings are very solemn, sacred, serious affairs. Mother always cries when she goes to one."

Betty began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she had to sit down on the floor, and the more the two girls glared at each other, the harder she laughed.

"I don't see what's so funny," resented Bobby, beginning to snicker, too. "For goodness sake, don't have hysterics, Betty. Mother will hear you and come rapping on the door in a minute."

"I just thought of something." The convulsed