"Dear old Alix!" he said, sitting down on the bench beside her and
putting his arm about her. She dropped her head on his shoulder,
and so they sat, very still, for a long minute. Alix's hand went
to her own shoulder, and her fingers tightened on his, and she
breathed deep, contented breaths, like a child.

"Somebody ought to wire Mrs. Grundy, collect," she said, after
awhile.

"We will defy Mrs. Grundy, my dear," Peter said, kissing the top
of a soft brown braid, "by trotting off hand in hand tomorrow and
getting ourselves married. Why, Alix, he gave us his consent years
ago--don't you remember?"

"He DID wish it!" she said, and burst into tears.

"I seem to be doing things in a slightly irregular manner," she
said to him the next day, when they had gotten breakfast together,
and were basking in the sunlight of the upper deck of the
ferryboat, on their way to the city. "I spend the night BEFORE my
marriage alone--alone in a small country house hidden in the
woods--with my betrothed, and propose to buy my trousseau
immediately after the ceremony!"

"I feel like saying to you what the dear old French archbishop
said to the small child," Peter smiled, marvelling a little
nonetheless at her untouched serenity. "He was speaking to all the
children in some institution, and came to this little one: 'ET TU
ETES NEGRE? AH, BIEN--BIEN, CONTINUEZ--CONTINUEZ!' It's what makes
you yourself, Alix, doing everything just a little differently."