They had sat down to supper when we entered, and the Professor cast a glance of keen inquiry through his spectacles at us, over the cold beef and pickles with which he was recruiting his energies after "Hiawatha." "Yes, papa," said Lurana, calmly, "we _are_ a little late; but Theodore has been asking me to marry him, and I have said I would." There was an outburst of congratulations from Miss Rakestraw and Chuck. Old Polkinghorne thought fit to conceal his joy under a cloak of stagey emotion. "Well, well," he said, "it is Nature's law; the young birds spread their wings and quit the warm nest, and the old ones are left to sit and brood over the past. I cannot blame you, child. As for _you_, my boy," he added, extending a flabby hand to me, "all I can say is, there is no one to whom I would so willingly surrender her." There was scarcely any one to whom, in my opinion, he would _not_ surrender her with the utmost alacrity, for, as I have already hinted, Lurana, with all her irresistible fascination, had a temper of her own, and was apt to make the parental nest a trifle _too_ warm for the elder bird occasionally. [Illustration: "Yes, papa, we are a little late."] "And when am I to lose my sunbeam?" he asked. "Not _just_ yet?" "Theodore wishes to have the marriage as soon as possible," said Lurana, "by special licence." "Have you settled where?" inquired Miss Rakestraw, with feminine interest in such details. "Well," said Lurana slowly, evidently enjoying the effect she was producing, "Theodore and I have quite made up our minds to be married at the Menagerie--in the den of lions." "How splendid!" exclaimed the lady journalist. "It's never been done over here. _What_ a sensation it will make! I'll do a full descriptive report for all my papers!" "That's what I call a real sporting way of getting spliced," said Chuck. "Only wish I'd thought of it myself before I had our banns put up, Ruth. First-rate idea of yours, Blenkinsop." "Of course," I said, "if the Professor thinks it in the least unsafe----" [Illustration: "First-rate idea of yours, Blenkinsop."] "Oh, it's safe enough," put in Chuck, who was a little too apt to volunteer his opinion. "Why, we've seen the lions, Professor; they're as quiet as lambs. And anyway, they'd have the lion-tamer in with them, you know. _They'll_ be all right!" "I think," said the Professor, "we may disregard the danger; but the expense--have you thought what it will cost, Theodore?" "I have not," I said, "not till you mentioned it. It will probably be enormous, more than I could possibly afford--unless you are ready to go halves?" I concluded, feeling perfectly certain that he was ready to do nothing of the sort. "But look here," said Chuck, "why should it cost you anything? If you go the right way about it, you ought to get all your expenses paid by the circus, and a share of the gate-money into the bargain."