the
shadows, Aunt Olivia made a flying leap from the buggy and ran along the
platform, with her cape streaming behind her and all her brooches and
chains glittering in the lights. I tossed the reins to a boy standing
near and we followed. Just under the glare of the station lamp we saw
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson, grip in hand. Fortunately no one else was very
near, but it would have been all the same had they been the centre of a
crowd. Aunt Olivia fairly flung herself against him.

"Malcolm," she cried, "don't go--don't go--I'll marry you--I'll go
anywhere--and I don't care how much mud you bring in!"

That truly Aunt Olivia touch relieved the tension of the situation a
little. Mr. MacPherson put his arm about her and drew her back into the
shadows.

"There, there," he soothed. "Of course I won't be going. Don't cry,
Nillie-girl."

"And you'll come right back with me now?" implored Aunt Olivia, clinging
to him as if she feared he would be whisked away from her yet if she let
go for a moment.

"Of course, of course," he said.

Peggy got a chance home with a friend, and Aunt Olivia and Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson and I drove back in the buggy. Mr. MacPherson held Aunt
Olivia on his knee because there was no room, but she would have sat
there, I think, had there been a dozen vacant seats. She clung to him in
the most barefaced fashion, and all her former primness and reserve were
swept away completely. She kissed him a dozen times or more and told him
she loved him--and I did not even smile, nor did I want to. Somehow, it
did not seem in the least funny to me then, nor does it now, although it
doubtless will to others. There was too much real intensity of feeling
in it all to leave any room for the ridiculous. So wrapped up in each
other were they that I did not even feel superfluous.

I set them safely down in Aunt Olivia's yard and turned homeward,
completely forgotten by the pair. But in the moonlight, which flooded
the front of the house, I saw something that testified eloquently to the
transformation in Aunt Olivia. It had rained that afternoon and the
yard was muddy. Nevertheless, she went in at her front door and took Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson in with her without even a glance at the scraper!

VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's

I refused to take that class in Sunday School the first time I was
asked. It was not that I objected to teaching in the Sunday School. On
the contrary I rather liked the i