There was great excitement, too, at the parsonage that morning.  The Misses Snow were stirred by the romance of the occasion.  They had little enough of this element in their lives, and were disposed to make the most of it when it came.  The eldest had been invited to accompany the bride to Number Nine, and spend a few weeks with her there.  As this was accounted a great privilege by the two younger sisters, they quietly shelved her, and told her that they were to have their own way at home; so Miss Snow became ornamental and critical.  Miss Butterworth had spent the night with her, and they had talked like a pair of school-girls until the small hours of the morning.  The two younger girls had slept together, and discussed at length the duties of their respective offices.  One was to do the bride’s hair and act as the general supervisor of her dress, the other was to arrange the flowers and take care of the guests.  Miss Butterworth’s hair was not beautiful, and how it was to be made the most of was the great question that agitated the hair-dresser.  All the possibilities of braid and plait and curl were canvassed.  If she only had a switch, a great triumph could be achieved, but she had none, and, what was worse, would have none.  A neighbor had sent in a potted white rose, full of buds and bloom, and over this the sisters quarreled.  The hair would not be complete without the roses, and the table would look “shameful” if the pot did not stand upon it, unshorn of a charm.  The hair-dresser proposed that the stems which she was bent on despoiling should have some artificial roses tied to them, but the disgraceful project was rejected with scorn.  They wrangled over the dear little rose-bush and its burden until they went to sleep—­the one to dream that Miss Butterworth had risen in the morning with a new head of hair that reached to her knee, in whose luxuriance she could revel with interminable delight, and the other that the house was filled with roses; that they sprouted out of the walls, fluttered with beads of dew against the windows, strewed the floor, and filled the air with odor.

Miss Butterworth was not to step out of the room—­not be seen by any mortal eye—­until she should come forth as a bride.  Miss Snow was summarily expelled from the apartment, and only permitted to bring in Miss Butterworth’s breakfast, while her self-appointed lady’s maid did her hair, and draped her in her new gray silk.

“Make just as big a fool of me, my dear, as you choose,” said the prospective bride to the fussy little girl who fluttered about her.  “It’s only for a day, and I don’t care.”