"Because I want to take Maudie for a good trip abroad. She wishes it--I wish it. What do you say? Clothes? Oh, surely we needn't consider a few clothes. Get as little as she can do with for a continental trip--lay the wedding gown up in lavender, and let Maudie buy the rest of her things in Paris as we come home." "There's reason in it," said Alfred Whittaker, from the depths of his big chair. "I don't like my daughter being married in such a hurry as this," said Regina, half hesitatingly. "But why? Hurried marriages are the fashion nowadays. Royalty pulls it off in a couple of months or so--long engagements are out of date. I knew a man once," Harry went on--"I didn't know him very well, but I met him--who had been engaged to a girl for thirteen years, and they somehow or other didn't altogether hit it off when they did get married. There's nothing to be gained by waiting. You don't really get to know one another until the knot is actually tied. I know Maudie as well now as I should know her if I was engaged to her for seven years." "I don't want you to wait seven years," said Regina. "Well, I should hope not," replied Harry. "But as many months--" began Regina, when Harry Marksby impetuously interrupted her. "Oh no, Mrs. Whittaker," he exclaimed. "Maudie would be worn to fiddlestrings long before seven months were over. The end of July, if you please. I can work all my business up to that point--then everything's slack, it's a sort of off-time, so to speak--and I can go away with a clear conscience and give my wife a ripping honeymoon--get a ripping honeymoon myself, for the matter of that." "You have decided where you want to go?" Regina inquired. "Yes, we're going to Switzerland, taking the Rhine on our way and the Italian lakes as we come back; get a fortnight in Paris, or if we drive it too late for that, stay three or four days in Paris, and perhaps go back again for a few days in the early autumn--if Maudie wants clothes, that is to say." "I sha'n't," said Maudie. "I am not going to get my dresses in Paris. I've come to see now that we made fools of ourselves when we came home from school with everything Parisian. They were horrid, and were a full year in advance of the fashions here. I hate being a year ahead of the fashions--it's quite as bad as being two years behind them. I would much rather not have all my things bought now, mother. I think Harry is quite right. A couple of good tailor-dresses, a few muslins, my wedding dress, and a tea-gown, and other things of that kind, are necessary, but I can get my further trousseau as I want it." "I call that a practical suggestion," put in Alfred Whittaker. "Most practical," agreed Harry. "That was why I was fascinated in the first instance by Maudie--she is so practical." "Do you want a wife to be altogether practical?" demanded Julia, while Maudie looked up anxiously, as if her beloved Harry was about to find some flaw in her.