A Surprising Announcement

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"I shouldn't think you were old enough to be a bridesmaid," said Felicity sharply.

"I'm nearly fifteen. Anyway, Aunt Olivia says I have to be."

"Who's she going to marry?" asked Cecily, gathering herself together after the shock, and finding that the world was going on just the same.

"His name is Dr. Seton and he is a Halifax man. She met him when she was at Uncle Edward's last summer. They've been engaged ever since. The wedding is to be the third week in June."

"And our school concert comes off the next week," complained Felicity. "Why do things always come together like that? And what are you going to do if Aunt Olivia is going away?"

"I'm coming to live at your house," answered the Story Girl rather timidly. She did not know how Felicity might like that. But Felicity took it rather well.

"You've been here most of the time anyhow, so it'll just be that you'll sleep and eat here, too. But what's to become of Uncle Roger?"

"Aunt Olivia says he'll have to get married, too. But Uncle Roger says he'd rather hire a housekeeper than marry one, because in the first case he could turn her off if he didn't like her, but in the second case he couldn't."

"There'll be a lot of cooking to do for the wedding," reflected Felicity in a tone of satisfaction.

"I s'pose Aunt Olivia will want some rusks made. I hope she has plenty of tooth-powder laid in," said Dan.

"It's a pity you don't use some of that tooth-powder you're so fond of talking about yourself," retorted Felicity. "When anyone has a mouth the size of yours the teeth show so plain."

"I brush my teeth every Sunday," asseverated Dan.

"Every Sunday! You ought to brush them every DAY."

"Did anyone ever hear such nonsense?" demanded Dan sincerely.

"Well, you know, it really does say so in the Family Guide," said Cecily quietly.

"Then the Family Guide people must have lots more spare time than I have," retorted Dan contemptuously.

"Just think, the Story Girl will have her name in the papers if she's bridesmaid," marvelled Sara Ray.

"In the Halifax papers, too," added Felix, "since Dr. Seton is a Halifax man. What is his first name?"

"Robert."

"And will we have to call him Uncle Robert?"

"Not until he's married to her. Then we will, of course."

"I hope your Aunt Olivia won't disappear before the ceremony," remarked Sara Ray, who was surreptitiously reading "The Vanquished Bride," by Valeria H. Montague in the Family Guide.

"I hope Dr. Seton won't fail to show up, like your cousin Rachel Ward's beau," said Peter.

"That makes me think of another story I read the other day about Great-uncle Andrew King and Aunt Georgina," laughed the Story Girl. "It happened eighty years ago. It was a very stormy winter and the roads were bad. Uncle Andrew lived in Carlisle, and Aunt Georgina--she was Miss Georgina Matheson then--lived away up west, so he couldn't get to see her very often. They agreed to be married that winter, but Georgina couldn't set the day exactly because her brother, who lived in Ontario, was coming home for a visit, and she wanted to be married while he was home. So it was arranged that she was to write Uncle Andrew and tell him what day to come. She did, and she told him to come on a Tuesday. But her writing wasn't very good and poor Uncle Andrew thought she wrote Thursday. So on Thursday he drove all the way to Georgina's home to be married. It was forty miles and a bitter cold day. But it wasn't any colder than the reception he got from Georgina. She was out in the porch, with her head tied up in a towel, picking geese. She had been all ready Tuesday, and her friends and the minister were there, and the wedding supper prepared. But there was no bridegroom and Georgina was furious. Nothing Uncle Andrew could say would appease her. She wouldn't listen to a word of explanation, but told him to go, and never show his nose there again. So poor Uncle Andrew had to go ruefully home, hoping that she would relent later on, because he was really very much in love with her."

"And did she?" queried Felicity.

"She did. Thirteen years exactly from that day they were married. It took her just that long to forgive him."

"It took her just that long to find out she couldn't get anybody else," said Dan, cynically.