Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/259

 wide-eyed as she waited for their mother's answer. When Mistress Condit nodded and smiled, both girls uttered a shriek of joy, and, catching each other by the hands, spun around and around the big kitchen.

"But, Nancy, won't your father and mother feel badly not to be at your wedding?" Mehitable presently stopped her mad whirling to ask this, with her usual lack of tact.

Mistress Nancy turned from the window where she was conversing with Squire Condit, who had entered during the confusion. Her eyes darkened and her lips quivered all at once.

"Aye," she nodded soberly. "But—but John dared not come to New York Town, for fear o' capture, and—and my mother could not come on horseback, not being well, so Father stayed home wi' her—and vehicles are not to be obtained for New Jersey trips so—so" The sweet voice thickened, choked, died away into silence.

"So we are to be married the morrow!" finished John tenderly, coming up to clasp his sweetheart in his arms. "And some people," he remarked pointedly, "do not exhibit the consideration they might display an they choose."

"Nay!" Mistress Nancy, drying the tears in her eyes, perceived the hurt ones in Mehitable's. "Nay!" The little bride-to-be ran across to the other girl. "Do not mind him, forsooth! He only