"And so I am going to be!" declared Peaches. "Sandro, you are a Dago nut, but I get you perfectly. And I'm going to keep you this time. If you will promise to get a more usual job I don't care how poor we are, only if it's all the same to you I would like to get married right after we wash these dishes. Pa may be closing in on us, and I'd like to have matters cinched before he arrives on the scene."
"Great Scott!" said Sandro. "Do you mean it?"
"I said it!" replied Peaches. "Please, Sandy, don't make me ask you twice!"
"But your poor father will be furious!" I protested. "And you'll have no bridesmaids or anything else!"
"Well, I don't know just how the law will act about your other affairs when the truth comes out," commented Dicky, "but I will say that Pa Pegg will have a hard time prying the wife of an Italian subject away from him."
"Will I stop being an American when I marry you, Sandy?" cried Peaches, showing the first extreme symptoms of excitement which she had evidenced as yet.
"Yes. But not for long!" he replied. "I want to come back to this, my mother's country—and stay. And when I am a citizen you'll be one again, you know!"
And so it was that it turned out to be a good thing that I had worn my best hat, after all. Because I had never been a bridesmaid before, and the feathers hadn't come out of curl after all. In point of fact the curl stayed in remarkably. I even noticed it after the steamer bearing the bride and groom had sailed and I went to the newspapers to insert the official notice of the wedding. There was a little mirror over the window and I noticed particularly.
And when this social duty was done I made Dicky Talbot drive me right to a hotel and sent for Mr. Pegg. I was fearfully afraid, and so was Dicky, bless the dear boy's heart. But he went, as was his duty; and I waited, as was mine. No one can ever say a Talbot was a coward!