Part 9 (1/2)

”We'll quickly find that out,” he said, and his voice was more buoyant than she had heard it in months. ”Missy, do you think you could get a note to her right away?”

Missy nodded eagerly.

He scribbled the note on the back of a letter and folded it with the Poem in the used envelope. ”There won't be any answer,” he directed Missy, ”unless she brings it herself. Just get it to her without anyone's seeing.”

Missy nodded again, vibrant with repressed excitement. ”I'll just pretend it's a secret about a poem. Miss Princess always helps make secrets about poems.”

Evidently Miss Princess did so this time. For, after an eternity of ten minutes, Young Doc, peering through the leaves of the summerhouse, saw Missy and her convoy coming across the lawn. Missy was walking along very solemnly, with only an occasional skip to betray the ebullition within her.

But it was on the tall girl that Young Doc's gaze was riveted, the slender graceful figure which, for all its loveliness, had something pathetically drooping about it--like a lily with a storm-bruised stem.

Something in Young Doc's throat clicked, and every last trace of resentment and wounded pride magically dissolved. He went straight to her in the doorway, and for a moment they stood there as if forgetful of everyone else in the world. Neither spoke, as is the way of those whose minds and hearts are full of inarticulate things. Then it was Doc who broke the silence.

”By the way, Missy,” he said in quite an ordinary tone, ”there are some of those sugar pills in a bag out in the Ford. You'll find them tucked in a corner of the seat.”

Obediently Missy departed to get the treat. And when she returned, not too quickly, Miss Princess was laughing and crying both at once, and Young Doc was openly squeezing both her hands.

”Missy,” he hailed, ”run in and ask your mother if you can go for a ride. Needn't mention Miss Princess is going along.”

O, it is a wonderful world! Swiftly back at the trysting place with the necessary permission, tucked into the Ford between the two happy lovers, ”away they did race until soon lost to view.”

And exactly the same happy purpose as that in the Poem! For, half-way down the stretch of Boulevard, Miss Princess squeezed her hand and said:

”We're going over to Somerville, darling, to be married, and you're to be one of the witnesses.”

Missy's heart surged with delight--O, it was a wonderful world! Then a dart of remembrance came, and a big tear spilled out and ran down her cheek. Miss Princess, in the midst of a laugh, looked down and spied it.

”Why, darling, what is it?” she cried anxiously.

”My Pink Dress--I just happened to think of it. But it doesn't really make any difference.” However Missy's eyes were wet and s.h.i.+ning with an emotion she couldn't quite control.

With eyes which were s.h.i.+ning with many emotions, the man and girl, over her head, regarded each other. It was the man who spoke first, slowing down the car as he did so.

”Don't you think we'd better run back to Miss Martin's and get it?”

For answer, his sweetheart leaned across Missy and kissed him.

A fifteen minutes' delay, and again the Ford was headed towards Somerville and the County Courthouse; but now an additional pa.s.senger, a big brown box, was hugged between Missy's knees. In the County Courthouse she did not forget to guard this box tenderly all the time Young Doc and Miss Princess were scurrying around musty offices, interviewing important, s.h.i.+rt-sleeved men, and signing papers--not even when she herself was permitted to sign her name to an imposing doc.u.ment, ”just for luck,” as Doc laughingly said.

Then he bent his head to hear what Miss Princess wanted to whisper to him, and they both laughed some more; and then he said something to the s.h.i.+rtsleeved men, and they laughed; and then--O, it is a wonderful world!--Miss Princess took her into a dusty, paper-littered inner office, lifted the Pink Dress out of the box, dressed Missy up in it, fluffed out the ”wave” in her front hair, and exclaimed that she was the loveliest little flower-girl in the whole world.

”Even without the flower-hat and the pink stockings?”

”Even without the flower-hat and the pink stockings,” said Miss Princess with such a.s.surance that Missy cast off doubt forever.

After the Wedding--and never in Romance was such a gay, laughing Wedding--when again they were all packed in the Ford, Missy gave a contented sigh.

”I kind of knew it,” she confided. ”For I dreamed it all, two nights running. Both times I had on the Pink Dress, and both times it was Doc.