“Ah, May,” said Dot. “Dear, dear, what changes! To talk of those merry school days makes one young again.”
“Why, you ain’t particularly old at any time, are you?” said Tackleton.
“Look at my sober, plodding husband there,” returned Dot. “He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don’t you, John?”
“Forty,” John replied.
“How many you’ll add to May’s I am sure I don’t know,” said Dot, laughing. “But she can’t be much less than a hundred years of age on her next birthday.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum was the laugh, though. And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot’s neck comfortably.
“Dear, dear,” said Dot. “Only think how we used to talk sometimes about the husbands we would choose. I don’t know how lively and gay mine was not to be! And as to May’s—ah, dear! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I think what silly girls we were.”
May seemed to know which to do, for the color flashed into her face and tears stood in her eyes.
“We little thought how things would come about,” said Dot. “I never fixed on John, I’m sure; I never so much as thought of him. And if I had told you you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton—why, you’d have slapped me, wouldn’t you, May?”
Though May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no, or express no, by any means.