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Presently in sweeps Aunt Tommy, in an elegant dress, not a hair out of place. She looked perfectly sweet, only her nose was a little red. Dick looked at her for just a moment, then he stepped forward and took her right into his arms.

Aunt Tommy drew back her head for just a second as if she were going to crush him in the dust, and then she just all kind of crumpled up and her face went down on his shoulder.

“Oh–Bertha–I–love–you–I–love you,” he said, just like that, all quick and jerky.

“You–you have taken a queer way of showing it,” said Aunt Tommy, all muffled.

“I–I–was led to believe that there was another man–whom you cared for–and I thought you were only trifling with me. So I sulked like a jealous fool. Bertha, darling, you do love me a little, don’t you?”

Aunt Tommy lifted her head and stuck up her mouth and he kissed her. And there it was, all over, and they were engaged as quick as that, mind you. He didn’t even go down on his knees. There was nothing romantic about it and I was never so disgusted in my life. When I grow up and anybody proposes to me he will have to be a good deal more flowery and eloquent than that, I can tell you, if he wants me to listen to him.

I left Jacky peeking still and I went to bed. After a long time Aunt Tommy came up to my room and sat down on my bed in the moonlight.

“You dear blessed Elizabeth!” she said.

“It’s all right then, is it?” I asked.

“Yes, it is all right, thanks to you, dearie. We are to be married in October and somebody must be my little flower girl.”

“I think Dick will make a splendid husband,” I said. “But Aunt Tommy, you mustn’t be too hard on Jacky. He only wanted to help things along, and it was I who put him up it in the first place.”

“You have atoned by going and confessing,” said Aunt Tommy with a hug, “Jacky had no business to put that off on you. I’ll forgive him, of course, but I’ll punish him by not letting him know that I will for a little while. Then I’ll ask him to be a page at my wedding.”

Well, the wedding came off last week. It was a perfectly gorgeous affair. Aunt Tommy’s dress was a dream–and so was mine, all pink silk and chiffon and carnations. Jacky made a magnificent page too, in a suit of white velvet. The wedding cake was four stories high, and Dick looked perfectly handsome. He kissed me too, right after he kissed Aunt Tommy.

So everything turned out all right, and I believe Dick would never have dared to speak up if we hadn’t helped things along. But Jacky and I have decided that we will never meddle in an affair of the kind again. It is too hard on the nerves.