“It will be a terrible risk to run, but if you can manage it and are not afraid, I will help all I can, for I long to punish Giles Bennett for his meanness!”
“I’ll take all the responsibility for everything,” smiled Miss Tuttle, glowing with eagerness. “Don’t you worry one bit, Leola; it will all come right in the end. But, oh, dear, I’ve got to put in a busy day getting the bride ready.”
“Make her as pretty as you can, and let the veil be very thick,” laughed Leola, with renewed good humor. “And, by-the-way, Miss Tuttle, you are to tell my guardian that before the ceremony begins Giles Bennett must destroy the mortgage in my presence, or I will not marry him at all.”
So the busy day began, for the whole household was in a state of excitement over the sudden wedding.
Mrs. Stirling and her daughter entered heartily into the spirit of the affair, and set the servants to work transforming the dingy parlor into a floral bower, with wildflowers and evergreens.
The scheming pair were delighted to think of getting rid of Leola so easily, hoping that some fortunate turn of fortune’s fickle wheel might yet bring back Chester Olyphant into Jessie’s power.
While they worked downstairs on the parlor, Miss Tuttle reported herself as very busy upstairs, getting ready the simple outfit of the bride, and packing her trunk for the flitting. Leola would not admit anybody else inside the door. She said she was too busy and too nervous.
Inside that locked door there were strange doings, to be sure.
You would have thought them a pair of amateur actresses, from the way they went on.
The governess had dragged down from the garret a little old trunk containing some stage properties that had once upon a time belonged to an actress who had died while on a visit to Wizard Hermann’s mother. Her relatives had never taken away the box, and many a time Leola had amused herself looking over the queer things on rainy days when she could not go out.