“Well, then, I won’t,” said Sally.  Her tone was cold, but a side glance at his serious face melted her a little.  “This is all Ferdie!” she burst out angrily.

“Too bad to make it so important,” said the doctor, regretfully.

“I don’t see why you should stay at the Bevises’,” said the girl, fretfully.  “It looks very odd—­when you had come to us.  I—­I am going to Glen Ellen early to-morrow, anyway.  I would hate to have the Bevises suspect—­”

“Then I will go back with you,” agreed the doctor, pleasantly.

Sally frowned.  She opened her lips, but shut them without speaking.  She had turned the car into a wide gateway, and a moment later they stopped at a piazza full of young people.  The noisy, joyous Bevis girls and boys swarmed rapturously about them.

After an hour of laughter and shouting, Sally and the doctor rose to go, accompanied to the motor by all the young people.

“Ah, you just got in, doctor?” said gentle Mrs. Bevis, with a glance at the suit-cases.

Sally flushed, but the doctor serenely let the misunderstanding go.  There was no good reason to give for the presence of two cases in the car.

“You look quite like an elopement!” said Page Bevis with a joyous shout.

“Put one of the cases in front, Bates, and rest your feet on it,” suggested the older boy, Kenneth.

As he spoke, he caught up Sally’s case, and gave it a mighty swing from the tonneau to the front seat.  In mid-flight, the suit-case opened.  Jars and powders, slippers and beribboned apparel scattered in every direction.  Small silver articles, undeniably feminine in nature, lay on the grass; a spangled scarf which they had all admired on Sally’s slender shoulders had to be tenderly extricated from the brake.

With shrieks of laughter, the Bevis family righted the case and repacked it.  Sally was frozen with anger.

“Mother said she knew you two would run off and get married quietly some day!” said pretty, audacious Mary Bevis.

“Dearie!” protested her mother.  “I only said—­I only thought—­I said I thought—­Mary, that’s very naughty of you!  Sally, you know how innocently one surmises an engagement, or guesses at things!”

“Oh, mother, you’re getting in deeper and deeper!” said her older son.  “Never you mind, Sally!  You can elope if you want to!”

“San Rafael’s the place to go, Sally,” said Mary.  “All the elopers get married there.  The court-house, you know.  No delays about licenses!”

“They’re very naughty,” said their mother, beginning to see how unwelcome this joking was to the visitors.  “Are you going straight home, dear?”

“Straight home!” said the doctor.

“Well, speaking of San Rafael,” pursued the matron, kindly—­“can’t you two and Elsie and Ferd go with us all to-night, say about an hour from now, up to Pastori’s and have dinner?”

“Oh, thanks!” said Sally, trying to smile naturally.  “I’m afraid not to-night.  I’ve got a headache, and I’m going home to turn in.”