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 this morrow," she said innocently. "At least, so I've heard!"

"A wedding!" Mehitable looked more and more bewildered. Afterward, she never would admit her stupidity, blandly stating in the face of all the witnesses that she had only been seeing if she could fool them! "Whose wedding, Nancy?" She looked blankly from one smiling face to the other.

"Oh, wake up, Hitty!" Doctor Condit snapped his fingers at her good-naturedly. "Mother, ye never let Hitty fall on her head when a babe to make her a little daft, now, did ye?" he asked, in feigned anxiety, turning to Mistress Condit. At that lady's laughing denial, he looked again at Mehitable.

"But—but" The girl stood looking at them wildly.

"Ye feel a little better, now, don't ye, Hitty?" Her brother hurried to her side in pretended concern and held her pulse. "Quite normal," he said then, to the others' chorus of mirth. "Let's see your tongue, Hitty!"

But sticking it out at him saucily, Mehitable fled to her mother's chair and faced that lady excitedly. "Mother, is it true Nancy and John are to be married here this morrow?" she demanded. "I can get no sense from either one o' them."

Charity, coming up behind Mehitable, stared