"You can't keep me from thinking like a woman. Feeling like one. Is it shameful to want to love? Is it wrong to desire in the man you are to marry that fundamental passion that makes the world go around? I'm not supposed to know any thing about the thing I'm plunging into until after I've plunged! I'm afraid, papa. Save me!" "Ben, I could swear who is at the bottom of this indecent talk of hers. I found his picture cut out of the school magazine and pasted in her diary. She's a changed child since that Lindsley came to the High School the year before she graduated." "Mamma! Mamma!" fairly exploded to her feet by the potency of her sense of outrage. "Oh, you--you--" "I know I'm right." "Why, I haven't even seen him since I graduated! I've never talked ten words to the man in my life! Oh--oh--how can you?" "Just the same, he's been your ruination. Since you got him into your head not one of the boys you met has been good enough. I knew you had him in mind the day you told me you wished Albert was a little more bookish and musical. I know why you wanted him to subscribe to the Symphony. The spats you made him buy. Poor boy! and his ankles aren't cut for them. Love! Your father and I weren't so much in love, let me tell you. Only I knew my parents wanted it and that was enough. I wish to God I'd never lived to see this day--" "Carrie!" "I do. Noon of my daughter's wedding day, and she can't make up her mind whether she'll be married or not. O God! it's funny--love, now at the last minute--oh--oh--" A geyser of hysteria shot up, raining down in a glassy kind of laugh. "Oh--oh, it's funny!--love--" "Carrie, you're hysterical. Here, smell this ammonia." "The little house--my heart's blood in it. A doll's house, ready for her to walk into. Membership in the Junior Matrons--trousseau--oh, it's funny--funny--" "For God's sake, papa, try to calm her!" "Funny--funny--funny." With a wave of sobs that broke over her, she went down, then, literally to her knees, her back heaving and shuddering. "Her wedding day--O God--funny--" "Mamma! Mamma! It's all right, dear. Don't--holler like that. I just got upset, that's all. Frightened like--like any other girl would. I'm all right now, mamma. I'm sorry." "We want to see you happy, baby. It's for your good." "Of course you do. I know it. I'm all right now, mamma." "We're your best friends, Lilly. We would go through fire for you." "Of course, mamma. I--I was nervous, that's all." "There's no finer boy breathes than Albert." "You're right." "He's sending you lilies-of-the-valley, baby. He's ordered himself some white-flannel tennis pants, too--the kind you admired. He got his report from the life-insurance people and he's a grand risk, Lilly. In as fine a condition to marry as a man could be. Baby, tell me--tell papa--aren't you happy?" "I am--I--oh, I am, dear! Why, here is Elsa ready to dress my hair! Mamma--dear--I'm all right now. Fine." * * * * *