Sissie clasped her mother’s neck.

“Don’t be foolish, you silly old mater.  It’s a wedding, not a funeral.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Mr. Prohack, sniffing with pleasure the new atmosphere created in his magnificent study by these feminine contacts.

“Do you think we’d better have the wedding at St. George’s, Hanover Square, or at St. Nicodemus’s?”

At the name of Nicodemus, Mr. Prohack started, as it were guiltily.

“Because,” Eve continued, “we can have it at either place.  You see Ozzie lives in one parish and Sissie in the other.  St. Nicodemus has been getting rather fashionable lately, I’m told.”

“What saith the bride?”

“Oh, don’t ask me!” answered Sissie lightly.  “I’m prepared for anything.  It’s mother’s affair, not mine, in spite of what she says.  And nobody shall be able to say after I’m married that I wasn’t a dutiful daughter.  I should love St. George’s and I should love St. Nicodemus’s too.”  And then she exploded again into disconcerting laughter, and the fit lasted longer than the first one.

Eve protested again and Sissie made peace again.

“St. Nicodemus would be more original,” said Eve.

“Not so original as you,” said Mr. Prohack.

Sissie choked on a lace handkerchief.  St. Nicodemus was selected for the august rite.  Similar phenomena occurred when Eve introduced the point whether the reception should be at Manchester Square or at Claridge’s Hotel.  And when Eve suggested that it might be well to enliven the mournfulness of a wedding with an orchestra and dancing, Sissie leaped up and seizing her father’s hand whizzed him dangerously round the room to a tuna of her own singing.  The girl’s mere physical force amazed him The dance was brought to a conclusion by the overturning of an occasional table and a Tanagra figure.  Whereupon Sissie laughed more loudly and hysterically than ever.

Mr. Prohack deemed that masculine tact should be applied.  He soothed the outraged mother and tranquillised the ecstatic daughter, and then in a matter-of-fact voice asked:  “And what about the date?  Do let’s get it over.”

“We must consult Ozzie,” said the pacified mamma.

Off went Sissie again into shrieks.

“You needn’t,” she spluttered.  “It’s not Ozzie’s wedding.  It’s mine.  You fix your own date, dearest, and leave Ozzie to me, Ozzie’s only function at my wedding is to be indispensable.”  And still laughing in the most crude and shocking way she ran on her uneven feet out of the room, leaving the shoe behind on the hearth-rug to prove that she really existed and was not a hallucination.

“I can’t make out what’s the matter with that girl,” said Eve.

“The sooner she’s married the better,” said Mr. Prohack, thoroughly reconciled now to the tedium of the ceremonies.

“I daresay you’re right.  But upon my word I don’t know what girls are coming to,” said Eve.