Then suddenly the spell was broken. The minister was shaking hands with
the bride and groom, Sally was taking her bouquet from Molly, every one
was laughing and talking at once, crowding up to offer congratulations,
handling, admiring, and discussing the wedding presents, half-falling
over each other with haste and excitement. Delicious smells began to
issue from the kitchen, and the long dining-table was quickly laden down.
Sylvia took her place at one end, behind the coffee-urn, Molly at the
other end, behind the strawberries and ice-cream. Katherine, Edith, and
the boys flew around passing plates, cakes of all kinds, great sugared
doughnuts and fat cookies. Sally was borne into the room triumphant on a
"chair" made of her brothers' arms to cut and distribute the "bride's
cake." Then, when every one had eaten as much as was humanly possible,
the piano was moved out to the great new barn, with its fine concrete
floors swept and scoured as only Peter could do it, and its every stall
festooned with white crepe paper by Sylvia, and the dancing began--for
this time the crowd was too great to permit it in the house, in spite of
the spacious rooms. Molly and Sylvia took turns in playing, and each
found several eager partners waiting for her, every time the "shift"
occurred. Finally, about midnight, the bride went upstairs to change her
dress, and the girls gathered around the banisters to be ready to catch
the bouquet when she came down, laughing and teasing each other while
they waited. Great shouts arose, and much joking began, when Edith--and
not Sylvia as every one had privately hoped--caught the huge bunch of
flowers and ribbon, and ran with it in her arms out on the wide piazza,
all the others behind her, to be ready to pelt Sally and Fred with rice
when they appeared. Thomas was to drive them to the station, and Sylvia's
motor was bedecked with white garlands and bows, slippers and bells, from
one end of it to the other. At last the rush came; and the happy victims,
showered and dishevelled, waving their handkerchiefs and shouting