"Amusing! I call him disgusting, with his 'Miss Minnie 'and 'take his leave.' He can't be a gentleman; there is something very suspicious about the whole affair."
"Indeed! and what do you suspect?"
"I don't believe there's a wedding at all. Perhaps he's an impostor who wants to get in here to steal."
"Do you miss anything?"
"No," said the lady, after a peep into her dining-room. "I can't say I do. But he may come back on this pretended wedding business. Are you sure that he really is Mr. Perley Pickens?"
"Why, yes. I have never spoken to him before, but I have seen him at the post-office, opening his box, and again at the station. I cannot be mistaken in that walk of his."
"Well, he may be the head of a gang of thieves, and have taken the house and got up this scheme of a wedding for some end of his own."
"Such as what?"
"Why, to cheat somebody, somehow. I am sure you will never get a wedding fee for it; and he may not pay any of the bills, and the people may bother us."
"He gave me the name of his Boston bankers, May & Maxwell, to whom he said I could refer the tradespeople, if they wished it, 'being a stranger here himself,' as he justly remarked. But whom, my dear, do you expect to provide for ushers or best man?"