_Enter_ CLARA; _the_ MOTHER.

CLARA.

Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had
been made today!

MOTHER.

Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther
and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of
style and in again ten times.

CLARA.

But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are
too wide! It must not annoy you!

MOTHER (_smiling_).

I should have to be you for that! CLARA.

And so this is the way you looked! But surely you carried a bunch of
flowers too, didn't you?

MOTHER.

I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in
the pot for so many years?