"Don't tell father what it cost, Rieneke!"

All those pretty things were locked away in the bedroom at home and hung
up in the oak press, while father was still at work.

On another evening, when mother and Horieneke were alone at home, the
seamstress brought the new clothes: a whole load of white muslin in stiff
white folds full of satin bows and ribbons and white lace. They had to be
tried on; and Horieneke stood there, for the first time in her life, all
in white, like an angel. But the happiness lasted only for a spell: there
came a noise and every one in the room fled and the clothes were hastily
taken off and put away.

Every day, when the boys were at school and father in the fields,
neighbours came to look at the clothes. Piece after piece was carefully
taken out of the press and spread out for show on the great bed. The
wives felt and tested the material, examined the tucks and seams and the
knots and the lining, the bows and ribbons and clapped their hands
together in admiration. It became known all over the village that
Horieneke would be the finest of all in the church.

The counted days crept slowly by, the sun climbed higher every day and
the mornings and evenings lengthened. Things out of doors changed and
grew as you looked: the young green stood twinkling on every hand; the
fields lay like coloured carpets, sharply outlined; and the trees grew
long, pale branches with leaves which stood out like stately plumes
against the sky, so full of youth and freshness and free from dust as yet
and tender. In course of time, white buds came peeping, gleaming amid the
delicate young leaves, till all looked like a spotted altar-cloth: a
promising splendour of white blossoms. Here and there in the garden an