Runaway

embarrassment than ever. And I don’t know what there is for me to think over.
    I am engaged to Wilf. I can’t believe it. Is this the way it happens to everybody?
    Apr. 14. Wilf came and talked to Father and I went over and talked to Ginny. I came right out and confessed that I felt awkward telling her, then said I hoped she would not feel awkward being my maid of honour. She said of course she wouldn’t and we both got rather emotional and put our arms around each other and had a bit of a sniffle.
    “What are fellows compared to friends?” she said.
    And I got in one of my devil-may-care moods and told her it was all her fault anyway.
    I said I couldn’t stand for the poor man to have had two girls turn him down.
    May 30. I have not written in here for so long because I am in a whirlwind of things that have to be done. The wedding is scheduled for July 10. I am getting my dress made by Miss Cornish who drives me crazy standing in my underclothes all stuck together with pins and her barking at me to stay still. It is white marquisette and I am not having a train because I am afraid I would somehow find a way to trip over it. Then a trousseau with half a dozen summer nightgowns and a watered-silk lily-patterned Japanese kimono and three pairs of winter pyjamas, all bought at Simpson’s in Toronto. Apparently pyjamas are not the ideal for your trousseau but nightgowns are no good to keep you warm and I hate them anyway, because they always end up getting tangled around your middle. A bunch of silk slips and other stuff, all peach or “nude.” Ginny says I should stock up while I have the chance, because if there is a War coming in China a lot of silk things will get scarce. She is as usual all up on the news. Her maid of honour’s dress is powder blue.
    Yesterday Mrs. Box made the cake. It is supposed to have six weeks to ripen so we are just getting in under the wire. I had to stir it for good luck and the dough was so heavy with fruit I thought my arm would drop off. Ollie was here so he took over and stirred a bit for me when Mrs. B. wasn’t looking. What kind of luck that will bring I do not know.
    Ollie is Wilf’s cousin and is visiting here for a couple of months. As Wilf has no brother he—Ollie, that is—is going to be best man. He is seven months older than I am, so it seems as if he and I are still kids in a way Wilf isn’t (I can’t imagine he ever was). He—Ollie—has been in a T. B. Sanatorium for three years but is now better. They collapsed one of his lungs when he was in there. I had heard about this and believed you had to function then with one lung but apparently not. They just collapse it so it can be out of use while they treat it with medication and encyst (not insist) the infection so that it is dormant. (See how I am getting to be quite the medical authority now, being engaged to marry a doctor!) While Wilf explained this Ollie put his hands over his ears. He says he prefers not to think about what was done and pretends to himself he is hollow like a celluloid doll. He is a very opposite person to Wilf but they seem to get along just fine.
    We are going to have the cake professionally iced at the bakery, thank God. I don’t think Mrs. Box could stand the strain otherwise.
    June 11. Less than a month to go. I should not even be writing here, I should get going on the wedding present lists. I can’t believe all this stuff is going to be mine. Wilf is after me to pick out the wallpaper. I thought the rooms were all plastered and painted white because that was the way he liked them, but it seems he just left them so his wife could pick out the paper. I am afraid I just looked dumbfounded at the job but then I pulled myself together and told him I thought that was very considerate of him but I really could not imagine what I wanted until I was living there. (He must have hoped for it to be all done when we got back from the honeymoon.) So that way I got it put off.
    I am still going to the Mill my two days a week. I sort of expected that would continue even after I was married but Father says of course not. He went on as if it wouldn’t be quite legal hiring a married woman unless she was a widow or in bad straits, but I pointed out it was not hiring since he didn’t pay me anyway. Then he said what he had been embarrassed to say at first, that when I was married there would be interruptions.
    “Times when you won’t be going out in public,” he said.
    “Oh, I don’t know