Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/125

 'Oh,' I said, glancing at them, 'what a dreadful, brazen woman.'

'It's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard,' he exclaimed helplessly. 'Extraordinary!' I cried excitedly, and, I'm afraid, raising my voice, 'it's the wickedest, most deceitful, most devilish——'

'Hush, oh, hush, my dear young lady,' said the clergyman, looking round nervously, as if he thought the very stones would fall on us at my desecrating words. 'Very well,' I said, 'I won't stay here to use any more strong language. I'll just hustle straight away, and leave you to tell the eleven o'clock bridegroom that you've married his bride to somebody else at ten o'clock.'

I picked up my sunshade and prepared to go. 'I'd much rather you stayed,' he said anxiously, putting out his hand and almost touching me on the arm. But my reply was arrested on my lips. The door at the far end of the church opened joyfully—I always think you can tell the temperament of anyone behind an opening door by the way they open it—and Boy's radiant figure stood silhouetted against the light from without. I looked round wildly, the vestry was my only chance of escape. I made for it with all speed. 'Be sure you break it to him gently,' I said as I brushed the anxious clergyman aside.