Page:So Big (1924).djvu/47

 carved from toe to heel in a delicate and intricate pattern. A bridal gown, a bridal cap, bridal shoes.

“Well! said Selina, with the feeling of a little girl in a rich attic on a rainy day. She clasped her hands. “May I dress up in it some time?”

Maartje Pool, folding the garments hastily, looked shocked and horrified. “Never must anybody dress up in a bride’s dress only to get married. It brings bad luck.” Then, as Selina stroked the stiff silken folds of the skirt with a slim and caressing forefinger: “So you get married to a High Prairie Dutchman I let you wear it.” At this absurdity they both laughed again. Selina thought that this school-teaching venture was starting out very well. She would have such things to tell her father—then she remembered. She shivered a little as she stood up now. She raised her arms to take off her hat, feeling suddenly tired, cold, strange in this house with this farm woman, and the two staring little girls, and the great red-faced man. There surged over her a great wave of longing for her father—for the gay little dinners, for the theatre treats, for his humorous philosophical drawl, for the Chicago streets, and the ugly Chicago houses; for Julie; for Miss Fister’s school; for anything and any one that was accustomed, known, and therefore dear. Even Aunt Abbie and Aunt Sarah had a not unlovely aspect, viewed from this chill farmhouse bedroom that had suddenly become her home. She had a horrible premonition that she was going to cry, began to blink very fast, turned a little blindly in the dim light and