"Oh, he's all right," responded Jean, "but you have been parading Cart before us ever since you were twelve years old; he is no novelty, and besides it is all talk on your part anyway."
"It isn't at all," retorted Jack, who felt that she must have some of the importance accorded Nan in her position of an engaged girl. "I always said I was going to marry him; you know I did, and I mean it now just as much as ever."
"Does Cart have anything to say about it?" inquired Jean teasingly.
"Of course he does. Do you suppose I would be so sure if it were not all settled?"
"Do you really mean that it is all settled and that you never told me?" ejaculated Jean indignantly.
"I didn't tell any one," Jack asserted. "I am going to tell mother now; while such affairs are in the air. It won't be so hard for her to get used to two such things together as to have them sprung on her separately." And off she went. But she was back again in a minute. "What did mother say to you, Nan?" she asked as she slid inside the door closing it after her. "Was she very serious and—and—oh, you know,—overcome and all that?"
"She was perfectly dear," said Nan, her eyes shining. "I told her first and then Neal came and we talked it over together. I went for Aunt Helen and then we four——"
"Had a heart to heart talk," interrupted Jack. "I don't think I could stand that. I shall try to make short work of it, for I should collapse under a long session. There is this much about it, mother ought not to be much surprised for I always maintained that I meant to marry Cart, while you vowed you would marry no one but a Virginian."
"That is all I knew about it," returned Nan. "I would marry Neal if he were a Japanese or a Chinaman."
Jack laughed. "Won't old Jo have it in for you when you have given her such digs about her devotion to her Dr. Paul?"