“Dear, are we going to be—­be married in town at a church?” Matthew inquired timidly one afternoon as he drove me home from a devastated hat shop on the avenue, in which Bess and I had been spending the day.

“No, Matt dear, at Elmnest,” I answered kindly, as a bride, no matter how worn out, ought to answer a groom, though Bess says that a groom ought to expect to be snapped every time he speaks for ten days before the wedding.  “As long as I have got a home that contains two masculine parents I will have to be married in it.  I’ll go out the morning of the wedding, and you and Polly fix everything and invite everybody in Riverfield, but just the few people here in town you think we ought to have, not more than a dozen.  Have it at five o’clock.”  I thought then that I fixed that hour because everybody would hate it because of the heat and uncertainty as to style of clothes.

“All right, dear,” answered Matthew, carefully, as if handling conversational eggs.

“Miss Ann, where do you want us to fix the wedding—­er—­bell and altar?” Polly ventured to ask timidly a few days later.

“The parlor, of course, Polly.  I hate that room, and it is as far from the barn as possible.  Now don’t bother me any more about it,” I snapped, and sent her flying to Matthew in consternation.  Later I saw them poring over the last June-bride number of “The Woman’s Review,” and I surmised the kind of a wedding I was in for.  That day I tried on a combination of tull, lace, and embroidery at Felicia’s that tried my soul as well as my body.

“It’s no worse than any other wedding-dress I ever saw; take it off quick, Madame,” I snapped as crossly as I dared at the poor old lady, who had gowned me from the cradle to the—­I was about to say grave.

“Eh, la la, mais, you are tres deficile—­difficult,” she murmured reproachfully.

“Any more so than Bess?” I demanded.

“Non, perhaps non,” she answered, with a French shrug.

With beautiful tact Matthew fussed with his throttle, which I couldn’t see stuck at all, the entire time he was driving me home, and left me with a careful embrace and also with relief in his face that I hadn’t exploded over him.  Owen is not like that to Bess; he just pours gas on her explosions and fans the resulting flame until it is put out by tears in his arms.

“Let’s never get married at the same time any more, Ann,” groaned Bess as Annette tried to put us both to bed that night before we fell dead on her hands.

“Don’t speak to me!” was my answer as nearly as I can remember.

“I’ll be glad to get Bess away from your influence,” raged Owen at me the next day when I very nearly stepped on one of the little chickens that he was having run in and out from the conservatory.

“You’ll want to bring her back in a week if both your tempers don’t improve,” was my cutting reply as this time I lifted another of his small pets with the toe of my slipper and literally flung it across the room.