little simper. "Of course you don't remember him.
He went out to British Columbia twenty years ago. But he is coming home
now--and--and--tell your father, won't you--I--I--don't like to tell
him--Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I are going to be married."

"Married!" gasped Peggy. And "married!" I echoed stupidly.

Aunt Olivia bridled a little.

"There is nothing unsuitable in that, is there?" she asked, rather
crisply.

"Oh, no, no," I hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a surreptitious
kick to divert her thoughts from laughter. "Only you must realize, Aunt
Olivia, that this is a very great surprise to us." "I thought it would
be so," said Aunt Olivia complacently. "But your father will know--he
will remember. I do hope he won't think me foolish. He did not think Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson was a fit person for me to marry once. But that
was long ago, when Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was very poor. He is in very
comfortable circumstances now."

"Tell us about it, Aunt Olivia," said Peggy. She did not look at me,
which was my salvation. Had I caught Peggy's eye when Aunt Olivia said
"Mr. Malcolm MacPherson" in that tone I must have laughed, willy-nilly.

"When I was a girl the MacPhersons used to live across the road from
here. Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was my beau then. But my family--and your
father especially--dear me, I do hope he won't be very cross--were
opposed to his attentions and were very cool to him. I think that was
why he never said anything to me about getting married then. And after
a time he went away, as I have said, and I never heard anything from him
directly for many a year. Of course, his sister sometimes gave me news
of him. But last June I had a letter from him. He said he was coming
home to settle down for good on the old Island, and he asked me if I
would marry him. I wrote back and said I would. Perhaps I ought to have
consulted your father, but I was afraid he would think I ought to refuse
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson."

"Oh, I don't think father will mind," said Peggy reassuringly.

"I hope not, because, of course, I would consider it my duty in any case
to fulfil the promise I have given to Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. He will be
in Grafton next week, the guest of his sister, Mrs. John Seaman, across
the bridge."

Aunt Olivia said that exactly as if she were reading it from the
personal column of the Daily Enterprise.

"When is the wedding to be?" I asked.

"Oh!" Aunt Olivia blushed distressfully. "I do n