"This is the second time of asking."
"This is the third time of asking."
And so far none had discovered any just cause or impediment why John
Corrie Graeme and Margaret Brandt should not in due course be joined
together in holy matrimony.
On the occasion of the third asking, however, one in the congregation,
a casual visitor and in no way personally concerned in the matter,
found it of sufficient interest to make mention of it in a letter
home, and so unwittingly played his little part in the story.
Meanwhile, the glorious summer days between the askings were golden
days of ever-increasing delight to Graeme and Margaret, and of rich
enjoyment to Miss Penny.
Never was there more complaisant chaperone than Hennie Penny. For, you
see, she took no little credit to herself for having helped to bring
about their happiness, and the very least she could do was to further
it in every way in her power.
In her own quaint way she enjoyed their "lovering," as she called it,
almost as much as they did themselves. And that being so, they would
have felt it selfish on their part to deprive her of any portion of
her rightful share in it.
And that was how Miss Hennie Penny became so very knowing in such
matters, and also why she lived in a state of perpetual amazement at
the change that had come over her friend.
For Margaret, affianced to the man who had her whole heart, was a very
different being from Margaret harassed and worried by Mr. Pixley and
his schemes for her possession and possessions.
Charming and beautiful as she had always been, this new Margaret was
to the old as a radiant butterfly to its chrysalis,--as the glory of
the opening flower to the promise of the bud. And Hennie Penny's
quickened intelligence, projecting itself into the future, could
fathom heights and depths and greater glories still to come.
But even now, when they went along the lanes festooned as for a
wedding with honeysuckle and wild roses, the faces of those they met
lighted up at sight of them, and few but turned to look after them
when they had passed, and Miss Penny's truthful soul took none of the
silent homage to herself.
Margaret was supremely happy. She could not have hidden it if she had
tried. She made no attempt to do so. She gave herself up to the
rapturous enjoyment of their "lovering" with all the naïve abandon of
a delighted child. The little ties and tapes and conventions, which
trammel more or less all but the very simplest lives, fell from her,
snapped by the expansion of her love-exalted soul. She was back to the
simple elementals. She loved Jock, Jock loved her. They were happy as
the day was long. Why on earth should they not show it? If she had had
her way she would have had every soul in all the world as happy as
they two were.
"I feel like an elderly nurse with two very young children," said Miss
Penny to the pair of exuberants.
"O Wise Nurse! We shall never be so young again," laughed Graeme.
"But we are never going to grow any older inside," laughed Margaret.
"Never!" said Graeme, with the conviction of absolute knowledge, and
carolled softly--
"O it's good to be young in the days of one's youth!
Yes, in truth and in truth,
It's the very best thing in the world to be young,
To be young, to be young in one's youth."
"Very apropos!" said Miss Penny. "Did you make it on the spot?"
"In anticipation," he laughed. "It's the opening song in a very
charming comic opera I once committed. But it was too good for the
present frivolous age, and so I have to perform it myself."
"I would like to give all the children on the island--" began
Margaret.
"All the other children--" corrected Graeme.
"All the children--including Hennie and you and me--the jolliest feast
they've ever had in their lives, the day we are married."
"Of course we will, and the doctor shall get in an extra supply of
palliatives. They shall look back in after years and say--'Do you
remember that feast we had when the loveliest of all the angels came
down from heaven and was married to that delightful
Englishman?'--Briton, I ought to say! I do wish our dear old Lady
Elspeth could be here. How she would enjoy it!--'That feast,' they
will say, 'when we were all ill for a month after and the doctor died
of overwork.' They will date back to it as ancient peoples did to the
Flood. It will be a Great White Stone Day to generations to come. Let
us hope there will be no new white stones over yonder"--nodding in the
direction of the churchyard--"in commemoration of that great day."
"We will draw the line short of that," said Margaret seriously.
"We'll give them all the gâche they can eat--home-made, and such as
their constitutions are accustomed to,--and fruit and frivolities from
Guernsey. I'll go across the Saturday before--"
"_We_ will go across," said Margaret.
"Of course we will. We older children will go, and we'll take Nurse
with us,"--with a bow towards Hennie Penny,--"and we'll make a day of
it, and have ices again at that place in the Arcade, and then we'll go
round the shops and clear them out for the benefit of Sark."
"Ripping!" said Miss Penny.