He described the place in glowing colors to Margaret and Blair, a few nights afterward, as they three were sitting in a cool corner of the Botanical Gardens.
"A most delightful nook, my dear Miss Margaret; quite a typical old English village. I could spend the rest of my days there, and if I were going to be married—alas! why should it be one's fate to assist at other people's happiness, and have none oneself?—it is the place of all others I should choose for the ceremony."
"What does it matter where the church is?" said Blair, in his blunt fashion, and with a point-blank look of love at the sweet, downcast face beside him.
"It matters a great deal, my dear Blair; but I'm addressing Miss Margaret, who can appreciate the beauties of a scene, being an artist. I assure you it is a most charming spot, and it is so quiet and out of the way that I really think one might commit bigamy three times running there in as many weeks, and no one would be any the wiser. Why did you start, Blair?"
Margaret looked up at Blair at the question, and he met both her and Austin Ambrose's gaze with astonishment.
"Why did I what? Start? I didn't start," he said. "Why should I? What were you saying? To tell you the truth, I was looking at Madge's foot at the moment, and wondering how anybody could walk with such a mite, and comparing it with my own elephant's hoof. I didn't hear what you said quite."
Margaret drew her foot in, and looked up at him rebukingly.
"You shouldn't be frivolous, sir," she said.
"You shouldn't have such a small foot, miss," he retorted, in the fashion which is so sweet to lovers, and so silly to other people. "Now, what was it you said, Austin?"
Austin Ambrose laughed.