With difficulty the house was partially cleared: and then, while Aunt Plenty mounted guard over her boy, Rose stole away to see if Mac had gone with the rest; for as yet they had hardly spoken in the joyful flurry, though eyes and hands had met. CHAPTER XXII. _SHORT AND SWEET._ In the hall she found Steve and Kitty; for he had hidden his little sweetheart behind the big couch, feeling that she had a right there, having supported his spirits during the late anxiety with great constancy and courage. They seemed so cosey, billing and cooing in the shadow of the gay vase, that Rose would have slipped silently away if they had not seen and called to her. "He's not gone: I guess you'll find him in the parlor," said Steve, divining with a lover's instinct the meaning of the quick look she had cast at the hat-rack, as she shut the study-door behind her. "Mercy, no! Archie and Phebe are there, so he'd have the sense to pop into the sanctum and wait; unless you'd like me to go and bring him out?" added Kitty, smoothing Rose's ruffled hair, and settling the flowers on the bosom where Uncle Alec's head had laid until he fell asleep. "No, thank you, I'll go to him when I've seen my Phebe. She won't mind me," answered Rose, moving on to the parlor. "Look here," called Steve, "do advise them to hurry up and all be married at once. We were just ready when uncle fell ill, and now we can _not_ wait a day later than the first of May." "Rather short notice," laughed Rose, looking back with the door-knob in her hand. "We'll give up all our splendor, and do it as simply as you like, if _you_ will only come too. Think how lovely! three weddings at once! Do fly round and settle things: there's a dear," implored Kitty, whose imagination was fired with this romantic idea. "How can I, when I have no bridegroom yet?" began Rose, with conscious color in her tell-tale face. "Sly creature! you know you've only got to say a word and have a famous one. Una and her lion will be nothing to it," cried Steve, bent on hastening his brother's affair, which was much too dilatory and peculiar for his taste. "He has been in no haste to come home, and I am in no haste to leave it. Don't wait for me, 'Mr. and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr.;' I shall be a year at least making up my mind: so you may lead off as splendidly as you like, and I'll profit by your experience;" and Rose vanished into the parlor, leaving Steve to groan over the perversity of superior women, and Kitty to comfort him by promising to marry him on May-day "all alone."