“But you’ll come to my wedding and be one of the bridesmaids?” she pleaded.  “And you won’t blame me too much for getting out of the syndicate as I did?  I knew it wasn’t right and I felt awfully about it—­but then, Harry and I couldn’t have managed otherwise, and it takes years and years to save a thousand dollars!” she looked so sweet and pitiful and contrite as she said this that I forgave her everything and hugged her till she choked.  It seemed a shame to spoil her happiness with reproaches, and I couldn’t but think how I’d have felt myself if it had been Mor—­ Not that I cared a row of pins for him now, and would have despised myself if I did—­but everybody has moments of looking back—­and girls are such fools anyway.  And, of course, deep down somewhere I was pleased that he still cared.

I felt quite twittery when I first went to the garage after that, for I thought Morty might pop out at me from somewhere, and though I wasn’t afraid to meet him and would have cut him if I had, it would inevitably be embarrassing and upsetting.  But he had the good taste to stay away on my days, and I never saw as much as a pin-feather of him.  But he was awfully artful, even if he didn’t let himself be seen, and the things he did to the car went straighter to my heart than any words he could have spoken.  He put in a radiator, a new battery with a switch, three twisted cowhide baskets, two fifty-dollar acetylene lamps, an odometer, a spark gap, a little clock on the dashboard, and changed the tooter for a splendid French horn.  My repair bills, too, stopped as though by magic, and the bubble ran so well I guess people must have sat up nights with it!  The engine would start at the half-turn of the crank; the clutches were adjusted to a hair; she speeded up to twenty now on the open throttle, which she had never done before except in the advertisement; she was the showiest, smartest, fastest little car in town, and when she miraculously went into red leather, edged with gold stampings, people used to fall over one another on the street.  I believe those two months were the happiest months of my life.  It was automobile Heaven, and if it hadn’t been for pa’s blanks and Morty’s half-interest I should have been deliriously happy every day instead of every fourth.

I can’t think how it happened, but finally I got confused and lost count.  I had been away at my grandmother’s for a week and somehow that threw me out.  But it was a Thursday afternoon, I remember, and a beautiful autumn day, and I walked along to the garage with that delicious feeling of anticipation—­that tingle of happiness to come—­that made my heart bound with love of the little red wagon. (The horse, for all his prancing and social position, never roused a sensation like that and never will.) I dodged a big touring-car coming out, and then went in on the floor to order my car.  I was just telling Bert to get it out when I turned around, and there was Morty sitting in