“Miss Reade IS going to be married,” said the Story Girl. “She told me so last night. She is going to be married in a fortnight’s time.”
“Who to?” exclaimed the girls.
“To”—the Story Girl threw a defiant glance at me as if to say, “You can’t spoil the surprise of THIS, anyway,”—“to—the Awkward Man.”
For a few moments amazement literally held us dumb.
“You’re not in earnest, Sara Stanley?” gasped Felicity at last.
“Indeed I am. I thought you’d be astonished. But I wasn’t. I’ve suspected it all summer, from little things I’ve noticed. Don’t you remember that evening last spring when I went a piece with Miss Reade and told you when I came back that a story was growing? I guessed it from the way the Awkward Man looked at her when I stopped to speak to him over his garden fence.”
“But—the Awkward Man!” said Felicity helplessly. “It doesn’t seem possible. Did Miss Reade tell you HERSELF?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it must be true then. But how did it ever come about? He’s SO shy and awkward. How did he ever manage to get up enough spunk to ask her to marry him?”
“Maybe she asked him,” suggested Dan.