t fun! You are good,
after all."

"_Am_ I good, Mrs. James, or am I bad?" he asked, turning for the first
time to her, as if he were half inclined to change his mind. But she
only smiled. "I can't see that there's any real harm," said she. "It
does seem a pity that these poor people should have come all this way
and spent all this money for nothing, don't you think so?"

"I wasn't thinking of them. I was thinking of Miss MacDonald."

"I'm thinking of her too," answered Mrs. James, as seriously as if she
were deciding something important. "If you don't mind on your _own_
account, why----"

He laughed. "Oh, as to _that_!----Well, come along, Miss MacDonald----"

"Barrie," I reminded him.

"Barrie! On with our wedding toggery, and let's be quick, if we don't
want an audience."

He called the photographer rather sharply, and put him out of his
suspense. "You must thank the ladies' kind hearts," he said. "They can't
bear to have your scheme end in smoke. Tell us what you want us to do,
and we'll do it--anything in reason. But you mustn't expect the bride to
show her face. She must keep it turned aside."

"That'll be all right," said the man, "though, of course, we should have
preferred----But after your great kindness we mustn't ask too much----"

"Certainly you must not," Sir S. caught him up. And then the other
photographer, who had darted across the road to the chaise on hearing
the good news, opened a bundle that lay on the seat, and hauled out the
contents.

Mrs. James began to be interested in the game, and the people who lived
in the houses were delighted that they were not to lose their hoped-for
excitement. Luckily, as it was lunching-time for most travellers, the
road was empty, and it seemed likely that we might finish our play
without spectators. The only moving things in sight at the moment,
except our own group, were one cat, two dogs, and a vehicle even more
quaint than the chaise in front of the Blacksmith's Shop. It was a coach
like Cinderella's, though not so pumpkiny. It was drawn by two nice
brown horses who might have begun life as rats. On one rode a postilion,
and out of a window leaned an old man in a tall hat and a brown coat
with brass buttons and a high velvet collar and ruffles at the wrist.
His hair was powdered, and he wore a white stock wound round his throat.
If we had met him on the road, without an explanation, we should have
thought that we had gone mad, or had seen a ghost; but