All preliminaries were settled as far as they could be until Craig saw his mother, and the next morning he left Rocky Point, promising to come again within a few days and saying he should stop in Ridgefield with the news. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were just sitting down to their tea when Craig walked in upon them and unceremoniously drew up to the table in spite of Mrs. Taylor’s protestations that he must not till she brought down the silver forks and got him a china plate. At the farm house he had not thought whether he was eating from the choicest Dresden or the coarsest of delft, and it made no difference here. The light of a great happiness was in his heart and after supper was over and he was alone with his host and hostess he said to them laughingly, “Guess what I have done.” “I know. You let me tell,” Uncle Zach exclaimed, waving his hand towards his wife, who was about to speak. “You have offered yourself to Miss Alice. Ain’t I right?” “Yes, and she has accepted,” Craig replied. “My boy, I congratulate you. Yes, sir, I do, and I’m most as pleased as I should be if it was I instead of you,” Uncle Zach exclaimed. “Zacheus, I’m ashamed of you,—putting yourself in Mr. Mason’s place, and you an old married man,” Mrs. Taylor said reprovingly, but her husband did not see the point, and answered her, “There’s nothin’ to be ashamed of, if I be a married man. I’ve been through the mill and know all about it and I am glad for ’em. When is it to be?” “Some time in May,” Craig said, “and you and Mrs. Taylor are to attend the wedding.” This diverted Zacheus’s thoughts into another channel, and after Craig left the next morning he began to wonder if he ought not to have a dress coat for the occasion and if the tailor in town could make it, or should he buy it in Worcester. He finally decided upon the tailor in town and drove him wild with his directions and suggestions and fears that it would not be right. “I want it O. K., the finest of broadcloth and made up to snuff,” he said, and he went every day to see how it was progressing. Uncle Zacheus in a dress suit was something of a novelty and the tailor could not repress a smile when it was finished and tried on for the last time, with a cutaway vest to show the shirt front in which there was to be a breast pin at the wedding. “I look kinder droll and I don’t feel nateral,” Uncle Zacheus said, examining himself in the long glass. “Why, I ain’t much bigger than Tom Thumb. Funny that a swaller tail makes you look so little. I wonder what Dot will think. She’s havin’ a gown made in Worcester,—plum colored satin, with lace.” Dot, who had never taken kindly to the dress suit, told him he looked like a fool and advised him to wear the coat he was accustomed to wear to church. “Not by a long shot. I guess I know what is what, and I ain’t goin’ to mortify Craig and Miss Alice,” he said, and his suit was put carefully away in a dressing case, ready for the wedding, which occurred the first of May.