“I thought I might just look on, you know,” said Miss Sissons. “Mrs. Campbell and a brass-band—”
“You’ll stay in the house that night, Louise.”
“Why, the ring isn’t on my finger yet,” laughed the girl, “the fatal promise of obedience—” But she stopped, perceiving her joke was not a good one. “Of course, Jim, if you feel that way,” she finished. “Only I’m grown up, and I like reasons.”
“Well—that’s all right too.”
“Ho, ho! All right! Thank you, sir. Dear me!”
“Why, it ain’t to please me, Louise; indeed it ain’t. I can’t swear everything won’t be nice and all right and what a woman could be mixed up in, but—well, how should you know what men are, anyway, when they’ve been a good long time getting mad, and are mad all through? That’s what this town is to-day, Louise.”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Sissons, “and I’m sure I’d rather not know.” And so she gave her promise. “But I shouldn’t suppose,” she added, “that the men of Siskiyou, mad or not, would forget that women are women.”
Jim laughed. “Oh no,” he said, “they ain’t going to forget that.”
The appointed day came; and the train came, several hours late, bearing the box of confectionery, addressed to the Ladies’ Reform and Literary Lyceum. Bill, the ticket-agent, held his lantern over it on the platform.
“That’s the cake,” said he.