Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. [Illustration: Book Cover] And So They Were Married [Illustration: "'It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own, too, my dear'" (p. 126)] And So They Were Married _By_ Florence Morse Kingsley Author of "Titus," "The Singular Miss Smith," "The Resurrection of Miss Cynthia" With Illustrations By W. B. King New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1908 By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1908 By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY CHAPTER I Dr. North's wife, attired in her dressing-gown and slippers, noiselessly tilted the shutter of the old-fashioned inside blind and peered cautiously out. The moon was shining splendidly in the dark sky, and the empty street seemed almost as light as day. It had been snowing earlier in the evening, Mrs. North observed absent-mindedly, and the clinging drifts weighed the dark evergreens on either side of the gate almost to the ground. A dog barked noisily from his kennel in a neighbouring yard, and a chorus of answering barks acknowledged the signal; some one was coming along the moonlit street. There were two figures, as Mrs. North had expected; she craned her plump neck anxiously forward as the gate clicked and a light girlish laugh floated up on the frosty air. "Dear, dear!" she murmured, "I do hope Bessie will come right into the house. It is too cold to stand outside talking." Apparently the young persons below did not think so. They stood in the bright moonlight in full view of the anxious watcher behind the shutter, the man's tall figure bent eagerly toward the girl, whose delicate profile Mrs. North could see distinctly under the coquettish sweep of the broad hat-brim. "The child ought to have worn her high overshoes," she was thinking, when she was startled by the vision of the tall, broad figure stooping over the short, slight one. Then the key clicked in the lock and the front door opened softly; the sound was echoed by the closing gate, as the tall figure tramped briskly away over the creaking snow. The neighbour's dog barked again, perfunctorily this time, as if acknowledging the entire respectability of the passer-by; all the other dogs in town responded in kind, and again there was silence broken only by the sound of a light foot on the carpeted stair. Mrs. North opened her door softly. "Is that you, Bessie?" "Yes, mother." "Isn't it very late, child?" "It is only half past eleven." "Did Louise go with you?" "No, mother; she had a sore throat, and it was snowing; so her aunt wouldn't allow her to go." "Oh!" Mrs. North's voice expressed a faint disapproval.