The dance ended, everyone clapped, and there was a general rush to the food.

"This would be a good time to speak to Debbie and Henry," I said. I looked around and saw Meg Bryan talking to Mary Alice. I caught her eye and motioned that we were going over to see the bride and groom. She nodded fine.

Debbie and Henry still stood holding the two-year-old twins, Fay and May. Neither Sister nor I can tell the girls apart, though Sister swears she can. She also

is sure Henry is their father, because he was a donor at the sperm bank when he was in college. Today I wasn't sure she was wrong. Henry's face was bent toward the twin he was holding and she was looking up at him, and the resemblance was eerie.

"Aunt Pat! Uncle Fred!" Debbie greeted us. "I wondered where you were."

We hugged her, admired her dress, and wished for her, with all our hearts, supreme joy.

"We'll have you over for dinner soon as we get back," Henry promised, shaking Fred's hand.

"We'll hold you to that."

A final hug and we moved to make room for some other well-wishers. As we started off, Fred said, "Wait a minute," and ran back and whispered something in Debbie's ear. As he came back toward me, he was beaming. "ENT!"

The next hour passed quickly. The cake was cut, the top tier saved for the wedding couple's first anniversary. At one point we saw Mary Alice in animated conversation with a man who looked like Father Time with a brunette rug. Ninety, at least, he wasn't doing much of the animated conversing, but he did look interested in what Sister was saying.

"By George," Fred said, "I think she's done it."

"Could be," I agreed. "I think Bill better hurry back from Florida." Bill Adams has been Sister's "boyfriend" for several months. A nice, handsome man of seventy-two, strong enough to dip Sister when they dance, he was spending the winter months, as he always did, in St. Petersburg. Absence was not making Sister's heart grow fonder. Even the Valentine roses and the card, "Come on down. With love, Your Snowbird," had not appeased her. "Whoever heard of a snowbird from Alabama!" she snorted. His ab-

sence from Debbie's wedding was probably the death knell for that romance.

Our son, Alan, and his wife, Lisa, stopped to chat for a moment. They were staying with us, so we would have a good visit later. Right now, Lisa was bubbling about the cake and Debbie's dress and had we noticed how well Haley and Philip Nachman seemed to be getting along.

"He's an ENT," Fred said. "Pray, children. Pray."

"He's at least twenty years older than she is," Alan said.

"At the pinnacle of his profession. Pray, children."