bell rang in the hall beyond, and Merle Whipple went to it.

"Hello, hello! Whipple New Place--Merle Whipple speaking." He listened,
standing in the doorway to turn a puzzled face to the group about the
table. "Hello! Who--who?" His bewilderment was apparent. "But it's Pat
talking," he said, "over long distance."

"Calling from her room upstairs to fool you," warned Sharon. "Don't I
know her flummididdles?"

But the look of bewilderment on Merle's face had become a look of pure
fright. He raised a hand sternly to Sharon.

"Once more," he called, hoarsely, and again listened with widening eyes.
He lifted his face to the group, the receiver still at his ear. "She
says--good heaven! She says, 'I've gone A.W.O.L., and now I'm safe and
married--I'm married to Wilbur Cowan.'" He uttered his brother's name
in the tone of a shocked true Whipple.

"Good heaven!" echoed Harvey D.

"I'm blest!" said Gideon.

"I snum to goodness!" said the dazed Sharon. "The darned skeesicks!"

Merle still listened. Again he raised a now potent hand.

"She says she doesn't know how she came to do it, except that he put a
comether on her."

He hung up the receiver and fell into a chair before the table that held
the telephone.

"Scissors and white aprons!" said Sharon. "Of all things you wouldn't
expect!"

Merle stood before the group with a tragic face.

"It's hard, Father, but she says it's done. I suppose--I suppose we'll
have to make the best of it."

Hereupon Sharon Whipple's eyes began to blink rapidly, his jaw dropped,
and he slid forward in his chair to writhe in a spasm of what might be
weirdly silent laughter. His face was purple, convulsed, but no sound
came from his moving lips. The others regarded him with alarm.

"Not a stroke?" cried Harvey D., and ran to his side. As he sought to
loosen Sharon's collar the old man waved him off and became happily
vocal.

"Oh, oh!" he gasped. "That Merle boy has brightened my whole day!"

Merle frowned.

"Perhaps you may see something to laugh at," he said, icily.

Sharon controlled his seizure. Pointing his eyebrows severely, he cocked
a presumably loaded thumb at Merle.

"Let me tell you, young man, the best this family can make of that
marriage will be a darned good best. Could you think of a better
best--say, now?" Merle turned impatiently from the mocker.

"Blest if I can--on the spur of the moment!" said Gideon.

Harvey D. looked almost sharply at the exigent Merle.