that distressing announcement, the two months of purgatory between now
and the day of the wedding, and then the--calamity. I know it will be a
calamity. I can't get through it alive."

"You poor boy! I wish we could have a quiet little Wedding. It would be
so sweet, wouldn't it, dear?" she said plaintively, wistfully.

"But instead we are to have a hippodrome. Bah!" he concluded spitefully.
"I wouldn't talk this way, dear, if I didn't know that you feel just as
I do about it. But," and here he arose wearily, "this sort of talk
isn't helping matters. It's a case of church against choice. To-morrow
night we'll tell 'em, and then we'll quit sleeping for two months."

"There's only one way out of it that I can see. We might elope," she
said laughingly, standing before him and rubbing the wrinkles from
between his eyes.

Gradually his gray eyes fell until they looked into hers of brown. A
mutual thought sprang into the eyes of each like a flash of light
plainly comprehensive. He seized her hands, still staring into her eyes,
and an exultant hope leaped to his lips, bursting forth in these words:

"By George!"

"Oh, we couldn't," she whispered, divining his thought.

"We can! By all that's good and holy, we'll elope!" Hugh's voice was
quivering with enthusiasm, his face a picture of relief.

"Honestly, do you--do you think we could?" The girl's eyes were wide