“Why, because it was less conspicuous,” explained Mrs. Lane. “They’d just been here to dinner and had gone away, and if they’d come back afterwards, it might have looked queer. I wanted it to be as if I saw them by chance like, out back there. Well, after my dishes were all done up, and everything was in order, and the house locked tight for going away, I went upstairs and got ready. But when the time came it seemed as if I could never go in the world. I just stood at the back door in my things and couldn’t budge. ’Twas only the idea of Jonas going off alone by himself in the cars that started me. So I opened the door, very softly, and stepped out as light as I could, and locked it behind me, and made for the garden. I was just sure that you or somebody would see me and call out, and I didn’t know what I should say; and I was so scared I couldn’t hardly see. I did hear some kind of a noise, too, and that made me run. And I ran so fast I actually fell down, Susan—flat on the ground!”
“My!” exclaimed that sympathetic auditor. “Did you spoil your dress?”
“Pretty near. I was all over dirt when I finally got to the carriage, and so out of breath I couldn’t open my mouth, and that nervous I could have cried. I guess I did some, too. But Mrs. Webster just held my hand, and Mr. Webster talked about the weather and the crops and Jonas and everything, as natural as natural. And by and by I perked up. And we had a perfectly lovely ride to West Carthage.”
“Jonas met you there then, I s’pose.”
“No—or at least not just then. I wouldn’t have had him for the world. Such lots of Ackerton folks go to West Carthage.”
“Didn’t you go away together at all, then?” inquired Miss Cockerill sardonically.
“Why, of course we did!” cried the bride. “Jonas came in on the train. He was to be in the last car but one, sitting in the tenth seat from the back on the right-hand side—away from the station. Well, we got there just a little before time, and nobody could have told who was going. And when the train came in Mrs. Webster kissed me, and Mr. Webster shook hands, and they both said real nice things, and hoped I’d find Jonas all right; and then I got out and got on the car just as it started.”
“And did you find Jonas all right?” pursued the quizzical Miss Cockerill.
“You know well enough you don’t need to ask that, Susan Cockerill!” exclaimed Mrs. Lane. “You always find Jonas when he says so. He was right there where he said, looking as if he’d just stolen cream.”
“I should think he’d ha’ been scared when the train started and you wasn’t there.”