have a good time. I was just planning a gorgeous dinner-party I want to
have for her when you came so suddenly. Do you think we could arrange it
for Tuesday evening?"

"Good gracious, Molly, don't knock the town down like that! Let 'em have
more than a week to get used to this white rag of a dress you've been
waving in their faces for the last few days. Go slow!"

"I've been going so slow for so many years that I've turned round and
I'm going fast backward," I said with a blush that I couldn't help.

"Help! Let my kinship protect me!" exclaimed Tom in alarm, and he
pretended to move an inch away from me.

"Yes," I said slowly, and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from
under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and
black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full
shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung
down the gauntlet with a high head.

"Here, Molly, here are the keys of my office, and the spark-plug to the
car; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Jane has got a cake I'll
eat it out of your hands. Shall it be Switzerland or Japan? And I prefer
_my_ bride served in light grey tweed." Tom really is delightful. Then
we both laughed and began to plan what Tom called a conflagration. But
I kept that delicious rose-embroidered treasure all to myself. I wanted
him to meet it entirely unprepared.

I was glad we had both got over our excitement and were sitting
decorously drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate,