he stood there
regarding her with friendly eyes.

"I'm afraid it would," she answered. "I should love to have you--but--it
wouldn't be best--you understand."

"Yes, Miss Fletcher, I do understand, and I honor you for your
frankness, but I warn you I don't intend to let our acquaintance drop.
Good-night."

Chicken Little's foraging was most successful. She secured enough
wedding cake to furnish indigestion and dreams for a family of twelve,
not to mention samples of other edibles, but she was horribly afraid her
mother would see the bulging package in her coat pocket. It relieved her
mind to catch Ernest filling his pockets, too.

"I am just taking a little something to the boys," he apologized rather
shame-facedly.

Ernest freed his mind on the subject of weddings the following morning
at the breakfast table.

"I shouldn't mind the wedding," he said thoughtfully between mouthfuls
of buckwheat cakes and syrup, "but what a man wants a girl tagging round
all the time for, I can't see."

Mrs. Morton looked horrified, and the doctor looked up from his paper
long enough to ejaculate "What?" Chicken Little took up the cudgels:
"I'd like to have Marian round every single minute. I wish she was going
to live with us."

"Oh, Marian's all right, but I don't want any girl dearyin' me!" And
Ernest relapsed into the buckwheats again.

CHAPTER VII

CHICKEN LITTLE JANE AND DICK HARDING PLAY PROVIDENCE

"Jane," called Mrs. Morton as the child was starting back to school one
noon a few days after the wedding, "go by the postoffice on your way
home and ask for the mail. There will probably be a letter from Frank or
Marian on the afternoon train."

"I will, Mother." Chicken Little called back, but she came near
forgetting it because she had something else on her mind. She never
could keep two things on her mind at the same time successfully.

Alice had been very sober ever since the wedding. The night before
Chicken Little had found her crying.

"It's nothing, dear. I'm just silly enough to be worrying because I
can't be somebody," she told Chicken Little. "If I could only find a way
to go to school two years so I could teach! I have been thinking of
trying to work for my board, but Mary Miller did that and she had to
work so hard she didn't have time to study and she got sick. I don't see
how I could pay for my books and clothes either. Perhaps Uncle Joseph
would lend me the money if I'd write to him--I could pa