Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/164

 off a little, and the notion of even a small sum of money being spent on an unnecessary trip to Brooklyn was vetoed.

"It is going to take the most careful management to give your dear sister a pretty wedding," said Dear Mother, "and we must all of us put a check upon our extravagances."

"But there'd be no harm in my going if it didn't cost anything, would there?" asked Edward. And Dear Mother, feeling that she was on safe ground and committing herself to nothing, said that there would be none. She even said that it was sweet of Edward to be so eager to greet his brother, and that she was sorry that the trip could not be afforded.

"Well, then," said Edward joyously, for he felt that Dear Mother had gone too far to withdraw, "I'll go and it won't cost anything. And John won't mind paying my way back."

"You'll go and it won't cost anything!" exclaimed Dear Mother. "How will you go?"

"I'll walk."

Here Sarah, whose nose was running unpleasantly, sniffed in with a disagreeable, "Silly, you don't know the way."

Edward's adventure hung in the balance. He realized that he must be cunning as the serpent or receive an immediate and peremptory order to