“Milly and Bobolink were out in his car,” she said; “and Cousin Grace didn’t see us coming. We walked right in on her in the living-room before she knew he was there.” Caro paused to wipe her eyes. “I’ll cry for six months whenever I think about it. I don’t see how Cousin Grace can care so much—he’s been so hateful to her. I thought she was going to faint at first. Then she stood there speechless, her hands stretched out, and her face the most beautiful thing I ever saw. He called her name and went toward her, and she just slipped into his arms with one long sob, as if her heart were breaking. And I went out and shut the door.” When Milly came in she was plainly overjoyed, for her mother’s sake, if not for his; and Bobolink, Caro declared, behaved like an archangel. She inconsistently elucidated this remark by explaining that he had been brought up on a farm and was as crazy about the country as I am myself; and he has always kept up his knowledge of agriculture and his interest in it. Cousin Jason, who had taken him for what he politely terms a city fool, thawed visibly toward him during the evening. And before he left he had promised to give the bride away. Caro, who believes in striking while the iron is hot, offered to go to town with him the next day to order his dress-suit for the occasion. As the wedding is to be on the twenty-ninth, there is certainly no time to lose. But Cousin Jason, who has scorned conventionality all his life, balked instantly, and declared that if he had to make a fool of himself to do it he wouldn’t come to the wedding at all. Grace agreed at once to his wearing anything he chose; but Caro was resolved to carry her point. “You see, Mammy Lil, he was just in retreat, and I had to rout him. If I had let him make a stand about the clothes he’d wear I’d have been throwing away my victory. So I told him he had to have a dress-suit. He’d need it for my wedding as well as Milly’s. I didn’t tell him before Cousin Grace; I waited till he drove me back to Cousin Jane’s. And next day I went over again to sit up with him about it.” “He ought to have admired your persistence.” “That’s just what I told him. He began to weaken a little, so I brought him over and showed him the Perchery as a reward. And he went this very day. The tailor said he couldn’t make it in time, and Cousin Jason crowed and said he’d told me so. But I explained to the tailor that he could make it, and that he had it to do. So he agreed. We bought gloves, and a tie, and everything; and I made him get his hair cut, and he’s going to look scrumptious. You really haven’t an idea what can be done with an old relation till you begin to furbish him up.” * * * * *