"You'll have to get used to table linen, dear," she returned teasingly;
"it's my ambition to have one just like this for state occasions."
Joe appeared with the chariot just in time to receive and transport
the gift. "Here's your wedding present, Joe!" called Winfield, and
the innocent villagers formed a circle about them as the groom-elect
endeavoured to express his appreciation. Winfield helped him pack the
"101 pieces" on the back seat and under it, and when Ruth, feeling like
a fairy godmother, presented the red table-cloth, his cup of joy was
full.
He started off proudly, with a soup tureen and two platters on the seat
beside him. The red table-cloth was slung over his arm, in toreador
fashion, and the normal creak of the conveyance was accentuated by an
ominous rattle of crockery. Then he circled back, motioning them to
wait.
"Here's sunthin' I most forgot," he said, giving Ruth a note. "I'd drive
you back fer nothin', only I've got sech a load."
The note was from Miss Ainslie, inviting Miss Thorne and her friend to
come at five o'clock and stay to tea. No answer was expected unless she
could not come.
The quaint, old-fashioned script was in some way familiar. A flash
of memory took Ruth back to the note she had found in the dresser
drawer, beginning: "I thank you from my heart for understanding me." So
it was Miss Ainslie who had sent the mysterious message to Aunt Jane.
"You're not paying any attention to me," complained Winfield. "I
suppose, when we're married, I'll have to write out what I want to say
to you, and put it on file."
"You're a goose," laughed Ruth. "We're going to Miss Ainslie's to-night
for tea. Aren't we getting gay?"
"Indeed we are! Weddings and teas follow one another like Regret on the
heels of Pleasure."
"Pretty simile," commented Ruth. "If we go to the tea, we'll have to
miss the wedding."
"Well, we've been to a wedding quite recently, so I suppose it's
better to go to the tea. Perhaps, by arranging it, we might be given
nourishment at both places--not that I pine for the 'Widder's' cooking.
Anyhow, we've sent our gift, and they'd rather have that than to have
us, if they were permitted to choose."
"Do you suppose they'll give us anything?"
"Let us hope not."
"I don't believe we want any at all," she said. "Most of them would be
in bad taste, and you'd have to bury them at night, one at a time, while
I held a lantern."
"The policeman on the beat would come and ask us what we were doing,"
he objected; "and when we told him we were only burying our wedding
presents, he wouldn't believe us. We'd be dragged to the station and
put into a noisome cell. Wouldn't it make a pretty story for the morning
papers! The people who gave us the things would enjoy it over their
coffee."