WEDDING BELLS IN PROSPECT Four days before Christmas Dorothy Dale, her cousins, and Tavia all boarded the train with Jennie Hapgood, bound for the latter’s home in Pennsylvania. On Christmas Eve Jennie’s brother Jack was to be married, and he had written jointly with the young lady who was to be “Mrs. Jack” after that date, that the ceremony could not possibly take place unless the North Birchland crowd of young folk crossed the better part of two states, to be “in at the finish.” “Goodness me,” drawled Tavia, when this letter had come from Sunnyside Farm. “He talks as though wedded bliss were something like a sentence to the penitentiary. How horrid!” “It is. For a lot of us men,” Nat said, grinning. “No more stag parties with the fellows for one thing. Cut out half the time one might spend at the club. And then, there is the pocket peril.” “The—the _what_?” demanded Jennie. “What under the sun is that?” “A new one on me,” said Ned. “Out with it. ’Thaniel. What is the ‘pocket peril’?” “Why, after a fellow is married they tell me that he never knows when he puts his hand in his pocket whether he will find money there or not. Maybe Friend Wife has beaten him to it.” “For shame!” cried Dorothy. “You certainly deserve never to know what Tavia calls ’wedded bliss.’” “I have my doubts as to my ever doing so,” muttered Nat, his face suddenly expressing gloom; and he marched away. Jennie and Ned did not observe this. Indeed, it was becoming so with them that they saw nobody but each other. Their infatuation was so plain that sometimes it was really funny. Yet even Tavia, with her sharp tongue, spared the happy couple any gibes. Sometimes when she looked at them her eyes were bright with moisture. Dorothy saw this, if nobody else did. However, the trip to western Pennsylvania was very pleasant, indeed. Dorothy posed as chaperon, and the boys voted that she made an excellent one. The party got off gaily; but after a while Ned and Jennie slipped away to the observation platform, cold as the weather was, and Nat plainly felt ill at ease with his cousin and Tavia. He grumbled something about Ned having become “an old poke,” and sauntered into another car, leaving Tavia alone with Dorothy Dale in their compartment. Almost at once Dorothy said to her chum: “Tavia, dear, are you going to let this thing go on, and become worse and worse?” “What’s that?” demanded Tavia, a little tartly. “This misunderstanding between you and Nat? Aren’t you risking your own happiness as well as his?” “Dorothy——” “Don’t be angry, dear,” her chum hastened to say. “Please don’t. I hate to see both you and Nat in such a false position.” “How false?” demanded Tavia. “Because you are neither of you satisfied with yourselves. You are both wrong, perhaps; but I think that under the circumstances you, dear, should put forth the first effort for reconciliation.” “With Nat?” gasped Tavia. “Yes.” “Not to save my life!” cried her friend. “Never!” “Oh, Tavia!”