"Well I do say!" Mr. Doggett's eyes widened to their utmost. "I didn't know you had a cat in thar, Miss Lucy! I 'lowed maybe hit wuz a Cubiun parrit!" "O Nathan," faltered Miss Lucy, apologetically, "hit's the kitty you give me, and I was afraid Nancy might--might kill her, ef I didn't take her with me!" "All right," Mr. Lindsay smiled cheerfully: "I hain't never heerd o' no cats goin' to a weddin' before to be saved from execution, but ef Uncle Eph and me together can ketch her, she can go!" He crept cautiously up to the fence, and put out a propitiating hand. Kitty was not to be propitiated, but bounced down, and fled farther up the road, where she paused, a white spot in the darkness. "Jest git in, Mr. Lindsay," advised Mr. Doggett, "and drive erlong ontel you git most to her, and Miss Lucy can sorter talk to her a leetle, and maybe git her to come to the buggy." Mr. Doggett's advice proved good. This time, kitty, lured by the call of her mistress, allowed herself to be caught and replaced in her travelling-cage. "Bein's hit's so muddy, I'll jest walk to the pike," announced Mr. Doggett, when the basket was safely stowed under the seat, "I'm afeerd ef I wuz to git in now, hit might delay us some. Big Money, he hain't lazy, but I have sometimes knowed him to take a notion to _bear easy on a cold collar_." "Better let me do the walkin', Uncle Eph," protested Mr. Lindsay: "we don't aim to let you make a plumb dog of yourse'f fer us." "Now, Mr. Lindsay," expostulated Mr. Doggett, "you hain't a talkin' o' pullin' through the mud on that foot!" "I fergot my plagued foot." "Listen to him, Miss Lucy," chuckled Mr. Doggett. "Fergot a ready when he got with you, and all the way up here, he wuz a frettin' over that foot! I told him thar wuzn't nothin' so bad but what hit might be wuss! I knowed a man that had a raisin' come in his _jaw_ the day of his weddin': he couldn't open his mouth, and the weddin' had to be put off!" "Ain't he good to us, Nathan?" murmured Miss Lucy, from behind the thick barege veil she had tied over the bridal hat to protect it from the night dampness, as Mr. Doggett strode ahead with the lantern. "Whose buggy did you git?" she asked after a moment. Mr. Lindsay smiled wickedly in the darkness. "_I_ never got no buggy--Uncle Eph--he got hit. This is Mrs. Doggett's new buggy she got last week with her hogs (Johnny Leeds ordered hit fer her cheap), and hit hain't been rid in before. She tuck some of her butter'n-aig money and bought tarred paper to make a roof over hit, she's so choice of hit." Miss Lucy gasped. "Hit's a wonder she'd a loaned hit!" The darkness again hid a grin, a still more wicked one. "She _never_ loaned hit. Uncle Eph slipped hit out after her office hours--I mean after she was asleep." Miss Lucy looked uneasy. "Do you thenk hit's right fer us to be a ridin' in hit?"