, however, all the monetary effort attendant upon the
occasion could have been repaid afterward--all that and more; but now
to have an outlay and no return--that was too much! She would avert
it.

"I can do nothing with this saucy, impudent girl, this ungrateful
creature, but I appeal to you," she said to Steve, "to let her come to
her senses."

It was Mrs. Lamont, he thought, who was worse than mad to try to force
a young girl into an odious marriage, and Nannie's rebellion seemed
justifiable to him, unused though he himself was to defying any one.

"Nannie and I have decided," he said quietly. "I regret that you feel
so."

"You shall never be married from this house!" cried the aunt.

"We can go elsewhere," said Steve, not realizing that he was walking
into a net.

"And you may expect a bitter time after this conduct, miss," she
added.

"Mrs. Lamont," said Steve, stepping forward and taking Nannie's little
hand in his, "you will force us to an earlier marriage than we had
contemplated."

And now Steve was well in the toils of the net, and this was how it
happened that Mrs. Lamont was spared further expense for her willful
niece, and that Steve all but took Randolph's and Constance's breath
away by inviting them to a very quiet wedding which was to take place
at a church one morning about a week after this stormy scene, and
society buzzed like a bee over the elopement, as it called it, and so
forth, and so on, and all at once in the midst of the distractions
Nannie caught her breath and cried out:

"Why, goodness me! I'm married!"

And Steve received the news with almost equal dismay.

Really, if the Shah of Persia had presented this gentleman with a
white elephant, with long flowing trunk and two tails--three or four
tails, in fact--and this little gift had been brought up to his room
on a silver salver (always supposing that were possible) he could not
have felt much more nonplussed as to its proper disposal and care than
he did when he suddenly came out of a dream to realize he had a wife
on his hands.

"Where do you wish to live, my dear?" he asked in a tone that might
imply that he had all Europe and America to draw from as a place of
residence.

He was rather expecting Nannie to say that she wished to reside on
Calumet Avenue and to have a coach and four purchased that very day.

But nothing could surprise him now, so he received her abrupt answer
calmly.

"I want to live in the country, nea