"M-marked?" I stammered.
"Yes. After I saw her with her hat off," said my Husband, "I saw the 'mark'. I've seen it in boys before, but never in a girl—an absolutely isolated streak of gray hair! In all that riot of blondness and sparkle and youth, just as riotous, just as lovely, a streak of gray hair! It's bewitching! Bewildering! Like May itself! Now sunshine! Now cloud! You'll write to her immediately, won't you?" he begged. "And to Dr. Brawne, too? I told Dr. Brawne quite frankly that it was going to be rather an experimental party, but that, of course, we'd take the best possible care of her. And he said he'd never seen an occasion yet when she wasn't perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And that he'd be delighted to have her come—" laughed my Husband quite suddenly, "if we were sure that we didn't mind animals."
"Animals?" I questioned.
"Yes, dogs, cats, birds!" explained my Husband. "It isn't apt to be a large animal such as a horse or a cow, Dr. Brawne was kind enough to assure me. But he never knew her yet, he said, to arrive anywhere without a guinea pig, squirrel, broken- winged bat, lame dove, or half-choked mouse that she had acquired on the way! She's very tender-hearted. And younger than——"
Blankly for a moment my Husband and I sat staring into each other's eyes. Then, quite impulsively, I reached over and kissed him.
"Oh, Jack," I admitted, "it's too perfect! Truly it makes me feel nervous!—Suppose she should roll her hoop off the cliff or——"
"Or—blow out the gas!" chuckled my Husband.
So you see now our cast was all assembled.
Radiant, "runctious," impatient Paul Brenswick and Victoria Meredith for the Bride and Groom.
George Keets for the Very Celibate Person.