The entire household saw us off on our motor trip. Uncle John beaming, Mrs. Cardigan and the maids waving hands and aprons, Mother smiling at us through a mist. She was coming to Green Hill as soon as we were settled, and help me with my first housekeeping. She had demurred at first when I begged her to: had said that "young people were better off alone." But I, and then Bill, when he found how much I really wanted her and finally Father had overridden all her objections. I didn't tell my menfolk that it was delightful to have someone to whom you could talk "Bill" by the hour, and who never grew tired of listening and encouraging and interrupting with paeans of praise of her own. "What will she think of Mercedes?" I asked, as we rolled through the city, out toward the sunshine and open spaces. "She'll like her," said Bill. "Mother's a judge, and she adopted Wright long ago." "Those two wild children," I said, tolerantly. The maddest cablegram had come to us just before we left. I was still convulsed by it: Mercedes willing wedding in fall out of my head with happiness everything wonderful thank you a thousand times will see you very soon most marvelous girl in the world sends her love so do _I_. "WRIGHT" "I suppose they expect us to be surprised," I said. "Ostriches!" "I always knew you were a matchmaker," said Bill, "you certainly staged the whole thing well." "I had her out to amuse you, not Wright," said I, with partial truth. "Oh, you did, did you? 'The best laid plans'--. Didn't you know that I haven't had eyes or ears for another woman since that first night you insulted me--" "'Doctor Jumpy!'" said I, in delighted recollection. "If it weren't that I have to drive the car--" said Bill. "Perhaps, later, you could stop--" I suggested. He stopped in the midst of the still considerable traffic. And then we sped on again, leaving a breathless, open-mouthed policeman struck into stone, behind us. "Boston," said I to Bill, after we had been there for two hours, "is the darnedest place!" "What's the matter with it? Cradle of American culture and everythin'." "Reminds me of Havana," I said. "Havana! You're insane!" Bill laid his fork down and gazed at me in amazement over the table in the Copley Plaza. "Because it's so different," I said, "but the streets aren't much wider, so there. And after all, I think I could fall in love with the Common, and even Back Bay. There's something very solid about it all." As we left the city and went on through the lovely Massachusetts country, I became more and more enamoured of my own unknown New England. And Bill, delightful companion, grew positively instructive. I learned a little history by the way, and we poked around and explored, in a very leisurely manner.