I was over by the lilacs; but they didn’t see me.  I didn’t like to move.  It might have been ruinous, so I held my breath and waited.

When they got to the door they stopped again, and presently he held out his hand to say good-bye.  The way he did it, the way he looked at her made me just know, and I got right down on my knees under the lilac-bush, and when he’d gone I sang, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”  Sang it loud.

I didn’t care who heard.  I wasn’t telling why I was thankful.  Just telling I was.  Oh, Mary Martha Cary, to think of her being your really, truly Aunt!  The very next thing to a mother!

XIV

THE HURT OF HAPPINESS

I wouldn’t like to put on paper how I feel to-day.  Uncle Parke has gone.  Gone back to Michigan.  I’m such a mixture of feelings that I don’t know which I’ve got the most of, gladness or sadness or happiness or miserableness, and I’d rather cry as much as I want than have as much ice-cream as I could hold.

But I’m not going to cry.  I don’t like cryers, and, besides, I haven’t a place to do it in private.  I wouldn’t let Miss Katherine see me, not if I died of choking.  I ought to be rejoicing, and I am; but the female heart is beyond understanding, Miss Becky Cole says, and it is.  Mine is.  I could die of thankfulness, but I’d like first to cry as much as I could if I let go.

They are engaged.  Uncle Parke and Miss Katherine are, and they are to be married on the twenty-seventh of June.  That’s my birthday.  I will be thirteen on the twenty-seventh of June.

They told me about it night before last.  I was out on the porch, and Miss Katherine called me and told me she and Doctor Alden wanted me to go to walk with them.  I knew what was coming.  Knew in a flash.  But I pretended not to, and thanked her ever so much, and told her I’d just love to go.

We walked on down to the Calverton road, talking about nothing, and making out it was our usual night walk, but when we got to the seven maples Uncle Parke stopped.

“Suppose we sit down,” he said.  “It’s too warm to walk far to-night.”  And after we sat he threw his hat on the ground, then leaned over and took my hands in his.

“Mary Cary,” he began.  And though his eyes were smiling, his voice was real quivering.  I was noticing, and it was.  “Mary Cary, Katherine and I have brought you with us to-night to ask if you have any objection to our being married.  We would like to do so as soon as possible—­if you do not object.”

He turned my face to his, and the look in his eyes was grand.  It meant no matter who objected, marry her he would; but it was a way to tell me—­the way he was asking, and I understood.

“It depends,” I said, and, as I am always playing parts to myself, right on the spot I was a chaperon lady.  “It depends on whether you love enough.  Do you?”