"Why, of course! Doesn't it seem too sweet? Both our mothers!"

"There!" cried Amy, "you are going to cry too, Tanta! I thought weddings
were nice funny things. I never supposed they made people feel badly. I
sha'n't ever let Mabel get married, I think. But she'll have to stay a
little girl always in that case, for I certainly won't have her an old
maid."

"What do you know about old maids, midget?" asked Clover.

"Why, Miss Clover, I have seen lots of them. There was that one at the
Pension Suisse; you remember, Tanta? And the two on the steamer when we
came home. And there's Miss Fitz who made my blue frock; Ellen said she
was a regular old maid. I never mean to let Mabel be like that."

"I don't think there's the least danger," remarked Katy, glancing at the
inseparable Mabel, who was perched on Amy's arm, and who did not look a
day older than she had done eighteen months previously. "Amy, we're going
to make wedding-cake next week,--heaps and heaps of wedding-cake. Don't
you want to come and help?"

"Why, of course I do. What fun! Which day may I come?"

The cake-making did really turn out fun. Many hands made light work of
what would have been a formidable job for one or two. It was all done
gradually. Johnnie cut the golden citron quarters into thin transparent
slices in the sitting-room one morning while the others were sewing, and
reading Tennyson aloud. Elsie and Amy made a regular frolic of the
currant-washing. Katy, with Debby's assistance, weighed and measured; and
the mixture was enthusiastically stirred by Alexander, with the "spade"