Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/326

306 But the girls were able to conceal any embarrassment that they may have felt. Brenda put out her hand for the bride’s bouquet at just the right moment, and Julia  helped her adjust her veil as they turned from the altar. Neither of them stumbled over Agnes's train, as they had been afraid they might when they had talked the matter  over in advance; and the only criticisms made by the  spectators were wholly in commendation of the bride’s  youthful attendants. Brenda, as she passed the first pew, saw her mother furtively wiping her eyes, and this for a  second made her feel a trifle sad. But she was reassured as she caught sight of the beaming face of Nora who, from  her corner of a pew, held one hand against her heart in  a manner expressive of the greatest admiration.

Perhaps among all who attended the wedding no one felt more thoroughly satisfied than Amy. The pineapple silk had made up to perfection, and with its dainty trimmings of lace, even her mother, anxious though she always  was to discourage vanity, was forced to admit that Amy’s  dress would not suffer in comparison with that of any  other girl at the wedding. As for Amy herself, it seemed to her as if she could hardly be the same girl who used to  write rather melancholy verses on the subject of her loneliness and generally hard lot. Indeed, while preparing for the wedding festivities, she had not had time to  write even one poem, either melancholy or cheerful. Her mother did not go with her to the wedding, giving as a  reason that she did not care to make even this occasion an  exception to her usual rule of declining all invitations.