"And always shall be," answered Jessica simply. "Do you remember, girls, when I was about fourteen how frightfully sentimental I used to be. I read every love story I could lay hands on. I was forever imagining my wedding day. My bridegroom was always tall and dark, with piercing black eyes and a kingly air, and I always pictured myself as wearing a pink satin dress and being married in church. Sometimes fate parted us at the altar and sometimes we lived happily ever afterward. I used to plan that on the day of my wedding I would lock myself in my room, put on my pink satin dress and sit all day in rapt meditation. I would eat nothing, and see no one, not even father, until the moment when I swept grandly out into the hall and down the stairs to my carriage. Of course, I was transcendently beautiful and there I were always two or three disappointed lovers, who came to the church and cast sad, yearning eyes upon me as I glided up the center aisle with my hero. I never dreamed, then, that Reddy Brooks, my schoolmate and playfellow, was to be my destiny," she continued, her eyes growing tender, "or that I should begin my journey with him in our dear old parlor, surrounded by my chums. I haven't the least desire to sit alone and moon and meditate. I want all of you with me. It seems the most natural thing in the world that I should walk down the same old stairs to the same old parlor to meet the same old Reddy, just as I've done dozens of times before." "It's five minutes to eight, girls," announced Miriam Nesbit. "Say good-bye to Jessica Bright, and don't one of you dare to shed a tear." One after another the girls embraced Jessica. Nora was last. She and Jessica remained in each other's arms for a long, sweet moment. Their devotion was as deep and true as that which existed between Grace and Anne. "Here are the flower girls. It's time, Jessica," said Grace softly, as the two little girls who had been chosen to act in that capacity entered the room accompanied by Ellen, the Brights' old servant, who had been in the household since Jessica's babyhood. They were pretty, dark-haired children, cousins of Jessica's, and wore white lace frocks over pale green silk. On their heads were wreaths of tiny double white daisies and they carried small baskets filled to overflowing with the same flower.