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“I’m bound to have one good wedding in this house,” she said. “Not likely I’ll ever have another chance.”

She found time amid all the baking and concocting to warn me frequently not to take it too much to heart if Mark failed to come after all.

“I know a man who jilted a girl on her wedding day. That’s the men for you. It’s best to be prepared.”

But Mark did come, getting there the evening before our wedding day. And then a severe blow fell on Aunt Philippa. Word came from the manse that Mr. Bentwell had been suddenly summoned to Nova Scotia to his mother’s deathbed; he had started that night.

“That’s the men for you,” said Aunt Philippa bitterly. “Never can depend on one of them, not even on a minister. What’s to be done now?”

“Get another minister,” said Mark easily.

“Where’ll you get him?” demanded Aunt Philippa. “The minister at Cliftonville is away on his vacation, and Mercer is vacant, and that leaves none nearer than town. It won’t do to depend on a town minister being able to come. No, there’s no help for it. You’ll have to have that Methodist man.”

Aunt Philippa’s tone was tragic. Plainly she thought the ceremony would scarcely be legal if that Methodist man married us. But neither Mark nor I cared. We were too happy to be disturbed by any such trifles.

The young Methodist minister married us the next day in the presence of many beaming guests. Aunt Philippa, splendid in black silk and point-lace collar, neither of which lost a whit of dignity or lustre by being made ten years before, was composure itself while the ceremony was going on. But no sooner had the minister pronounced us man and wife than she spoke up.

“Now that’s over I want someone to go right out and put out the fire on the kitchen roof. It’s been on fire for the last ten minutes.”

Minister and bridegroom headed the emergency brigade, and Aunt Philippa pumped the water for them. In a short time the fire was out, all was safe, and we were receiving our deferred congratulations.

“Now, young man,” said Aunt Philippa solemnly as she shook hands with Mark, “don’t you ever try to get out of this, even if a Methodist minister did marry you.”

She insisted on driving us to the train and said goodbye to us as we stood on the car steps. She had caught more of the shower of rice than I had, and as the day was hot and sunny she had tied over her head, atop of that festal silk dress, a huge, home-made, untrimmed straw hat. But she did not look ridiculous. There was a certain dignity about Aunt Philippa in any costume and under any circumstance.

“Aunt Philippa,” I said, “tell me this: why have you helped me to be married?”

The train began to move.

“I refused once to run away myself, and I’ve repented it ever since.” Then, as the train gathered speed and the distance between us widened, she shouted after us, “But I s’pose if I had run away I’d have repented of that too.”