itatingly, "What is all the fuss about? You see, I am so new here
that I don't understand."

"Well, Miss Kellogg, neither do some of us older ones," retorted Miss
Swift with an unpleasant laugh. "It seems to me that it is 'much ado
about nothing.' Whose business is it if a doctor and a nurse decide to
get married? Why don't they go to the justice of the peace or some
parsonage and have it over with, instead of making such a stew--"

"You see, Miss Kellogg," interrupted Miss Keith mischievously, "our
friend Swift had her eye on the doctor--"

"Now, girls," suggested the quiet voice of the first speaker, gentle
Miss Gerald, "don't enter into personalities, please. They always breed
ill feeling. You have met Helen Wayne, have you not, Miss Kellogg?"

"Yes, indeed. I think she is lovely."

"So does Dr. Race and all the rest of us," put in Miss Keith, unable to
resist another wicked glance at her neighbor.

"Well, they are to be married very soon, and neither of them has any
relatives living here in Fairview, so--"

"All their friends began to interfere," said Miss Swift.

"O!" But Miss Kellogg still looked mystified.

"Now don't pretend that it was as bad as all that," protested Miss
Gerald. "It seems that Dr. Shumway was a classmate of Dr. Race, and they
have always been great friends; so Mrs. Wood, Dr. Shumway's sister,
asked them to be married at her house. But Dr. Kruger's wife and Helen
graduated from the same school, and the Krugers urged them to have the
ceremony performed at their place."

"And then Dr. Canfield bobs up with the assurance that he will feel most
dreadfully hurt if they don't honor him by coming there," interrupted
Miss Keith. "Miss Wayne nursed her first case under him, and he thinks
her popularity is due solely to the recommendation he gave her,--the
dear old fogy!"

"Also the Fairview Club, to which Dr. Race belongs, wants them to be
married at the Club-house. O, it's great to be popular!"

"Why don't they simplify matters by having a church wedding?" asked Miss
Kellogg, much interested.

"Ha--ha--ha!" laughed her three companions. "That's where the joke
comes. They belong to different churches, and are both intimate friends
of their pastors' families."

"Well, that does complicate matters, doesn't it?" said the newcomer
musingly. "She is surely in a dilemma, isn't she?"

"Don't you agree with me that she would better patronize a justice of
the peace?" asked Miss Swift.

"_I_ do