In the Room of the Bride-elect

“WOULD it had been the man of our wish!”
Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she
In the wedding-dress—the wife to be—
“Then why were you so mollyish
As not to insist on him for me!”
The mother, amazed: “Why, dearest one,
Because you pleaded for this or none!”

“But Father and you should have stood out strong!
Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find
That you were right and that I was wrong;
This man is a dolt to the one declined . . .
Ah!—here he comes with his button-hole rose.
Good God—I must marry him I suppose!”