With the exception of this one hitch, nothing went wrong so far as the wedding party was concerned, but with me things began to go very wrong several days before Caro and Mohunsleigh were married. There was a fuss of some sort between Sally and Mrs. Ess Kay, and Sally came to me, very much upset, to say that she would have to leave The Moorings immediately, she couldn't stand it twenty-four hours longer, even for my sake. She had promised to visit a friend in Chicago, sooner or later, so she would go straight to her, and if anything too tiresome should happen before I was ready to sail for home, I had better run out there;--the friend would be delighted to have me. Sally gave me the address, and I told her I would write often, but of course I didn't dream of having to accept her invitation. I missed her badly, but not as much as if the wedding had not been so near. Poor old Mohunsleigh--who knows more about the manners of polar bears than etiquette in American society,--was coached by Potter; and the night before the wedding rehearsal reluctantly gave an elaborate dinner to his best man, (an officer in Stan's regiment who happened to turn up) and the six ushers. The same day Carolyn had her Matron of Honour and the bridesmaids to lunch, and we did have fun talking over things. I should have thought a luncheon with all girls and no men might have been a little tame, and perhaps it would in England, but in America girls are not at all shy. They say just as funny things as men, and take the most beautiful pains to amuse each other, so that it's impossible to be bored, and for hours on end you forget there is such a creature as Man. At home, Mohunsleigh would have had to give us things, of course; but in America, it appears that the bridegroom makes presents to the best man and the ushers; so it was from Carolyn that I got a duck of a brooch, like an American flag, with stripes of diamonds and rubies, and the blue part sapphires. Mohunsleigh said that, as he was awfully hard up, it was bad luck for him to have to provide each of the bridesmaids with bouquets and chiffon muffs, and he could not see at all that it was a pretty idea for everything they carried in their hands to come from the bridegroom. But as Sally had told me that Carolyn's father had settled ten million dollars on her, I don't think Mohunsleigh need have complained. Although it was in a house, the wedding was very picturesque, and the bride and groom stood under a bell of white roses about as large as Big Ben. I enjoyed it all immensely, for it was my first time as bridesmaid, and I had a lovely frock and hat (copied from an old picture) for which--when I wanted the bill--I found Sally had paid. There was a crush at the reception, but it only lasted two hours. After the bride and groom had gone, with showers of rice and satin slippers, we stayed and had a dance--just the ushers and bridesmaids and a few young people, who were intimate friends of Carolyn's.