or-yourself-lady. Half an hour passed
rapidly.

"Well?" I said.

"I really don't know which I like best. Which do you?"

"The first; it's nearer the door."

"There's another shop just over the way. We'd better just look there
too, and then we can come back to decide to-morrow."

We went out. I glanced at my watch. It was 3.30, and we were being
married at 2.15 on the seventeenth of June.

"Wait a moment," I said, "I've forgotten my gloves."

I may be a slow starter, but I am very firm when roused. I went into the
shop, wrote a cheque for the three chests of drawers, and told the man
where to send them. When I returned, Celia was at the shop opposite,
pulling the drawers out of a real old mahogany chest which was standing
on the pavement outside.

"This is even better," she said. "It's perfectly adorable. I wonder if
it's more expensive."

"I'll just ask," I said.

I went in and, without an unnecessary word, bought that chest too. Then
I came back to Celia. It was 3.45, and on the seventeenth of June at
2.15---- Well, we had four chests of drawers towards it.

"Celia," I said, "we may just do it yet."

III.--THE HONEYMOON

"I know I oughtn't to be dallying here," I said; "I ought to be doing
something strenuous in preparation for the wedding. Counting the bells
at St. Miriam's, or varnishing the floors in the flat, or---- Tell me
what I ought to be doing, Celia, and I'll go on not doing it for a bit."

"There's the honeymoon," said Celia.

"I knew there was something."

"Do tell me what you're doing about it?"

"Thinking about it."

"You haven't written to any one about rooms yet?"

"Celia," I said reproachfully, "you seem to have forgotten why I am
marrying you."

When Celia was browbeaten into her present engagement, she said frankly
that she was only consenting to marry me because of my pianola, which
she had always coveted. In return I pointed out that I was only asking
her to marry me because I wanted somebody to write my letters. There
opened before me, in that glad moment, a vista of invitations and
accounts-rendered all answered promptly by Celia, instead of put off
till next month by me. It was a wonderful vision to one who (very
properly) detests letter-writing. And yet, here she was, even before the
ceremony, expecting me to enter into a deliberate correspondence with
all sorts of strange people who as yet had not come into my life at all.
It was too much.

"We will get," I said,