Everybody agreed that Mary’s impromptu wedding was a decided improvement upon the usual cut-and-dried variety. There was certainly nothing cut and dried about it. When the sun had gone below the tops of the tall elm trees on the lawn and the shadows fell, long and cool, on the velvety grass, Mary appeared on the piazza, wearing a soft white dress--“that didn’t look a bit like a wedding,” as little Helen Adams announced with her customary frankness. First she kissed her mother and patted her father’s shoulder lovingly, just as she did every morning before breakfast, and then she shook hands with everybody else, as unconcernedly as if it was no day in particular and all her dearest friends had merely happened to drop in for afternoon tea. But all at once, before anybody except the people concerned had noticed it, there was a cleared space in one corner, with a screen of ferns and white sweet peas for a background. Laurie and Roberta and Betty were close behind Mary, her father and Dr. Hinsdale were beside her, the “near-bridesmaids” and “near-ushers,” as K. had flippantly dubbed the rest of the bridal party, made a half circle around the others, and Mary Brooks, with one great white rose in her hand and a half-frightened, half-happy little smile on her lips, was being married to George Garrison Hinsdale.