he does marry her, how about
the possible children? What have they done that they should have Mary
for a mother?"

"That's exactly the right way to put it--what have they done? We don't
know, but they must have gone far astray last time, if they are given
such a bad start this incarnation."

Will Axworthy left town in the spring. Lumber was done in our part of
Michigan and he had to follow it further south. He and Mary
corresponded, for I caught Belle in the act of correcting one of her
letters.

"Do you think that's quite fair to Axworthy? If they become engaged, the
first unedited letter he gets from Mary will be considerable of a
surprise to him."

"Don't you bother your old head, Dave! I'm running this thing! He's
arranging to meet us in Chicago, and hopes to have the pleasure of
showing Mary the Columbian Exhibition. Something is sure to happen while
we're there!"

CHAPTER VI.

ALL winter we had been talking about the Fair, reading up about the
Fair, making plans for the Fair; and Belle declared that even if she
never saw the Fair she would be glad it had been, on account of the
amount of preparatory information she had laid up.

We did get off at last in the end of June, the whole of us, including
Mary, of course--my first experience of traveling in her company. We
went to Chicago by boat,--a night's crossing,--and a rare time I had
securing berths for the family in the overcrowded propeller. I was
thankful for an "extension," a sort of shell run out between two
staterooms and partitioned off by curtains and poles. The boys had to
sleep on sofas, floor, anywhere, which to them was but the beginning of
the fun.

The first of my Herculean labors at an end, I was enjoying my smoke aft
in the cool of the evening, when Belle came back to me, her brow drawn
up into what I had begun to call the "Mary wrinkle."

"David, I'm afraid you'll have to talk to that girl. She's sitting up in
the bow there flirting with one of the waiters, and though I've sent
Watty twice after her, she won't stir."

As majestically as my five feet four would permit, I moved to the front
of the boat.

"Mary, Mrs. Gemmell wants you right away."

She took time to exchange a laughing farewell with the good-looking
waiter, and explained to me _en route_:

"That's Bill Moreland. I knew him quite well in Lake City. I've met him
at balls."

In the morning before we reached Chicago, she managed to get in a long
confabulation