118 i TROTTY’S WEDDING TOUR.

Prim tried— she did try—to be sympathetic; but she
gave it up, and fell on the sofa in a convulsion of suffocated —
fun.

“OQ Rye Robbins! ‘You look like a feather-duster! You
look like an elm-tree with the roots up! You look like sago-
pudding — and — horsehair stuffing — and — and — Aunt
Banger!”

This last was a touch too much. Rye sat down on the sofa
(on top of her hat) and sobbed.

“ Dowt!” begged Prim. “ They ’re all looking at you!
What will they think?”

But Rye refused to be mortified or comforted. “ Go and
ask how long it will last!’ she commanded with the authority
of agony; and Prim meekly obeyed.

She came back with a serious cast of countenance.

“ Well?”

“A week.”

“ A week?”

Prim nodded silently.

Rye stopped crying; she pulled her hat out from under
her and put it on, in the calm of despair. Her poor pretty
mother! That was the worst of it. That was worse than
looking like Aunt Banger in a nightcap of white snakes for
a whole long week! What would her mother say ?

“Prim,” she said with solemnity, “let us go. It might
as well be done first as last. Come!” Prim came, quite
humbled and silent. They walked grimly down the length