“‘Well,’ says Ronald, ’if Aunty ain’t got a death certificate and two or three divorces put away somewhere, she stands right in line to get canned for a few years for bigamy.  You don’t look like you had an aunt that was a trigamist,’ says he.

“Margaret didn’t understand much of this, but she still kept thinkin’.  One day while Magdalene was at an afternoon reception, wearin’ all of Margaret’s jewels, Margaret looked all through her private belongings to see if she could find any divorces, and she come on a family Bible with the date of her birth in it, and her father’s will.

[Sidenote:  Facts of the Case]

“Soon, she understands the whole game, and by doin’ a small sum in subtraction, she sees that she is goin’ on nineteen now.  She’s afraid to leave the proofs in the house over night, so she wraps ’em up in a newspaper, and flies with ’em to her only friend Ronald Macdonald, and asks him to keep ’em for her until she comes after ’em.  He says he will guard them with his life.

“When Margaret goes back after them, havin’ decided to face her aunt and demand her inheritance, Ronald has already read ’em, but of course he don’t let on that he has.  He convinces her that she ought to get married before she faces her aunt, so that a husband’s strong arm will be at hand to defend her through the terrible ordeal.

“Margaret thinks she sees a way out, for she has been studyin’ up on law in the meantime, and she remembers how Ronald has told her he is under age, and she knows the marriage won’t be legal, but will serve to deceive her aunt.

[Sidenote:  The Climax]

“So she flies with him and they are married, and then when they confront Magdalene with the will, and the family Bible and their marriage certificate, and tell her she is a trigamist, and they will make trouble for her if she don’t do right by ’em, Magdalene sobs out, ’Oh, Heaven, I am lost!’ and falls in a dead faint from which she don’t come out for six weeks.

“In the meantime, Margaret has thanked Ronald Macdonald for his great kindness, and says he can go now, as the marriage ain’t legal, he bein’ under age and not havin’ his parents’ consent.  Ronald gives a long, loud laugh and then he digs up his family Bible and shows Margaret how he is almost twenty-five and old enough to be married, and that women have no patent on lyin’ about their ages, and that he is not going away.

“Margaret swoons, and when she comes to, she finds that Ronald has resigned his job as a street-car conductor, and has bought some fine clothes on her credit, and is prepared to live happy ever afterward.  He bids eternal farewell to work in a long and impassioned speech that’s so full of fine language that it would do credit to a minister, and there Margaret is, in a trap of her own makin’, with a husband to take care of her money instead of an aunt.  Next week, I’ll know more about how it turns out, but that’s as far as I’ve got now.  Ain’t it a perfectly beautiful story?”