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“Oh, I have, Johnny,” I said eagerly. “I’m all spunk. And I’ll do anything you’ll do. But won’t Father and Mother be perfectly savage?”

“Of course. But we’ll be there and they can’t send us home again, so we’ll see the wedding. We’ll be punished afterwards all right, but we’ll have had the fun, don’t you see?”

I saw. I went right upstairs to dress, trusting everything blindly to Johnny. I put on my best pale blue shirred silk hat and my blue organdie dress and my high-heeled slippers. Johnny whistled when he saw me, but he never said a word; there are times when Johnny is a duck.

We slipped away when Hannah Jane was feeding the hens.

“I’ll buy the tickets,” explained Johnny. “I’ve got enough money left out of my last month’s allowance because I didn’t waste it all on candy as you did. You’ll have to pay me back when you get your next month’s jink, remember. I’ll ask the conductor to tell us when we get to Marsden. Uncle Fred’s house isn’t far from the station, and we’ll be sure to know it by all the cherry trees round it.”

It sounded easy, and it was easy. We had a jolly ride, and finally the conductor came along and said, “Here’s your jumping-off place, kiddies.”

Johnny didn’t like being called a kiddy, but I saw the conductor’s eye resting admiringly on my blue silk hat and I forgave him.

Marsden was a pretty little village, and away up the road we saw Uncle Fred’s place, for it was fairly smothered in cherry trees all white with lovely bloom. We started for it as fast as we could go, for we knew we had no time to lose. It is perfectly dreadful trying to hurry when you have on high-heeled shoes, but I said nothing and just tore along, for I knew Johnny would have no sympathy for me. We finally reached the house and turned in at the open gate of the lawn. I thought everything looked very peaceful and quiet for a wedding to be under way and I had a sickening idea that it was too late and it was all over.

“Nonsense!” said Johnny, cross as a bear, because he was really afraid of it too. “I suppose everybody is inside the house. No, there are two people over there by that bench. Let us go and ask them if this is the right place, because if it isn’t we have no time to lose.”

We ran across the lawn to the two people. One of them was a young lady, the very prettiest young lady I had ever seen. She was tall and stately, just like the heroine in a book, and she had lovely curly brown hair and big blue eyes and the most dazzling complexion. But she looked very cross and disdainful and I knew the minute I saw her that she had been quarrelling with the young man. He was standing in front of her and he was as handsome as a prince. But he looked angry too. Altogether, you never saw a crosser-looking couple. Just as we came up we heard the young lady say, “What you ask is ridiculous and impossible, Ted. I can’t get married at two days’ notice and I don’t mean to be.”

And he said, “Very well, Una, I am sorry you think so. You would not think so if you really cared anything for me. It is just as well I have found out you don’t. I am going away in two days’ time and I shall not return in a hurry, Una.”

“I do not care if you never return,” she said.

That was a fib and well I knew it. But the young man didn’t–men are so stupid at times. He swung around on one foot without replying and he would have gone in another second if he had not nearly fallen over Johnny and me.