Part 24

"I know it's soon; but never mind getting ready. If you won't say Monday, make it Tuesday--do."

She shook her head again.

"Wednesday, then. Do say Wednesday, Huldy dear."

The same smile of gentle negation.

He dropped her hand disconsolately.

"Then I'll have to come back at Christmas-time, I s'pose. It's just my busy season now, or I would stay right here on this doorstep till you was ready, for it seems to me as if I'd been waiting for you ever since I was born, and couldn't get you too soon."

"Do you really want me to marry you so much, Pitt?"

"Never wanted anything so bad in my life."

"Didn't you wonder I wasn't more surprised to see you to-day?"

"Nothing surprises me in women-folks."

"Well, it was because I've dreamed of a funeral three nights running. Do you know what that's a sign of?"

Pitt never winked an eyelash; he had learned his lesson. With a sigh of relief that his respected stepmother was out of hearing, he responded easily, "I s'pose it's a sign somebody's dead or going to die."

"No, it isn't: dreams go by contraries. It's a sign there's going to be a wedding."

"I'm glad to know that much, but I wish while you was about it you'd have dreamt a little more, and found out when the wedding was going to be."

"I did; and if you weren't the stupidest man alive you could guess."

"I know I'm slow-witted," said Pitt meekly, for he was in a mood to endure anything, "but I've asked you to have me on every day there is except the one I'm afraid to name."

"You know I've had plenty of offers."

"Unless all the men-folks are blind, you must have had a thousand, Huldah."

Huldah was distinctly pleased. As a matter of fact she had had only five; but five offers in the State of Maine implies a superhuman power of attraction not to be measured by the casual reader.

"Are you sorry you called me a mass of superstition?"

"I wish I'd been horsewhipped where I stood."

"Very well, then. The first time you wouldn't marry me at all unless you could have me Friday, and of course I wouldn't take you Friday under those circumstances. Now you say you're glad and willing to marry me any day in the week, and so I'll choose Friday of my own accord. I'll marry you to-morrow, Pitt: and"--here she darted a roguishly sibylline glance at the clouds--"I have a water-proof; have you an umbrella for Saturday?"

Pitt took her at her word, you may be sure, and married her the next day, but I wish you could have seen it rain on Saturday! There never was such a storm in Pleasant River. The road to the Edgewood station was a raging flood; but though the bride and groom were drenched to the skin they didn't take cold--they were too happy. Love within is a beautiful counter-irritant.

Huldah didn't mind waiting a little matter of nineteen years, so long as her maiden flag sank in a sea of triumph at the end; and it is but simple justice to an erring but attractive woman to remark that she never said "I told you so!" to her husband.

TWO ON A TOUR

LOG-BOOK OF CHARLOTTE AMALIA CLIFFORD

S.S. Diana, January 21, 1918 On the way to the Virgin Islands

I engrossed the above heading in my journal shortly after we left the dock in New York, but from what has occurred in the past few days I think my occasional entries in the log-book are likely to be records of Dorothea Valentine's love-affairs as they occur to her day by day, and as unluckily they are poured into my ear for lack of a better or more convenient vessel.