Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/260

  “Your mind is so logical, Charlotte! However, this voyage would n’t have to be idealized to meet the needs of honeymooners. In a Vermont village where I sometimes stay I remember a girl who had to be married on Sunday because she could not give up her position as telegraph-operator till Saturday night. That was dull enough in all conscience, but she was married in her high-school graduating dress, and went to her grandmother’s house, ten miles away, for her wedding-journey. I think it required considerable inward felicity to exalt that situation!”

I sat upright in my steamer chair. “Dorothea,” I said sharply, “you have been manufacturing conversation for the last five minutes—just killing time for fear that I should ask you questions. Is there anything on your mind? You have been absent-minded and nervous for days.”

“Your imagination is working overtime, Charlotte,” she answered. “We are nearing home, that is all; and life presses closer.”