"I don't know exactly, but I expect it's exciting."
"Well, anything is better than doing nothing," laughs Oliver, in which his mother agrees.
So it comes to pass that the two leave their Pullman and wade through the snow to another side track, where a palace car is brilliantly lighted, and apparently crowded with the élite of the blockaded passengers, all in their blockade best.
At the door Oliver asks the porter: "What's going on?"
"A weddin', sah!" replies the negro. "An' they're havin' a very hard time inside; thar wasn't no weddin' ring—but I'se just cut off one of de curtain rings to give to de groom."
"Ah, some cowboy affair," remarks Ollie, who leads his mother into the car, and then gives a gasp, and sinks down on an unoccupied seat, while Mrs. Livingston, too much overcome for words, drops beside him.
For beneath a centre cluster of red and green coal-oil railroad lamps hung up as a decoration they see Erma Travenion and Harry Lawrence being joined in holy matrimony, and Ferdie and Louise acting as best man and bridesmaid.
A moment after the ceremony is finished.
Then Mr. Chauncey announces that a wedding breakfast, or, rather, wedding supper, is served in the grocery at the side of the track.
"It is not exactly a wedding breakfast," he says, "because it's evening, but there'll be plenty of champagne, and every one is cordially invited to attend!"