"So have I," said Jeff, who had returned with him from the Barrows home. "I wonder what the governor will say?" "I'm not worrying about him. I'm wondering what the girls' mother will say." "No one will say we are marrying them for their money, that's positive. Everybody here thinks we've got millions and millions." "Oh, by the way, did she accept you!" "Certainly. Did she accept you?" "Of course. Another thing, did she say anything to you about hurrying the thing along a bit, so as to have it over with before her mother gets wind of it?" "By George, she did. That's odd, isn't it? She's afraid her mother will object to her marrying a New Yorker. Got some silly prejudice against the Four Hundred. I said it couldn't happen any too soon for me. We had a sort of a notion next week would be about right." "It suits me," said the other. They shook hands. "I want to say, here and now, that I love her with all my heart and soul, and I'll never let her rue the day she married me. I love her, old son." "Not a blamed bit more than I do," said Jeff fervently. "She's the best ever!" The next morning they saw by the newspaper that their father had married his night nurse in the hospital and was going up into Maine to recover! That same day, on the seventh tee of the Elite course, Toots promised to marry Ripley two weeks from Wednesday. At Wayside Beppy told Jefferson she would marry him at the same time, but I think it was on the ninth green. "Mother will be wild when we cable the news to her," said she. CHAPTER IV ALL VAN WINKLES The fortnight between that fateful day on the links and the Wednesday aforesaid, was full of surprising complications for the Van Winkle and Barrows families. The two girls went into fits of hysteria on receipt of a cablegram from their mother in Paris announcing her marriage to Mr. Courtney Van Winkle, of New York. They were still more prostrated on learning from their wide-eyed sweethearts that not only was Courtney their step-father but he was on the point of becoming their brother-in-law as well. A still greater shock came the day of their own double wedding which took place in the Barrows mansion on Ardmore Avenue in the presence of a small company of guests. It developed that the Mrs. Smith who nursed old Mr. Van Winkle and afterwards married him was their divorced sister, Mary, who had not only grown tired of a husband but of nursing other women's husbands as well. The situation was unique. "Good heavens," said Rip, after the ceremony which linked the entire Barrows family to the Van Winkles, "what relation are we to each other?" "Well," said his wife, "for one thing, you are my uncle by marriage." "And I am my father's brother-in-law. By the same argument, the governor becomes his own son's son-in-law. Can you beat it?" "Your brother becomes your father, and my mother is my sister. Now, let's see what else--" "And your sister is now your mother-in-law. By the way, has she any children?"