"You're a fool of a kid!" he said, choking.
When Jim looked into his cousin's face, he knew. "Oh, I say, old man, it wasn't so bad as all that."
Aleck stiffened up. "Who said anything about its being bad? You'd better get some togs to wear at the wedding. I'm going to need these clothes myself."
It turned out, actually enough, that the wedding was to come off on a certain Wednesday in September.
"Would you like New York and a bishop and a big church better than the old red house and the Charlesport minister?" Aleck anxiously asked of Mélanie.
"Oh, no," she protested; and Aleck knew she was sincere. So they prepared to terminate their holidays by celebrating the wedding in the pine grove. Mélanie spent the intervening days happily with Agatha, or walking with Aleck, or with the delightful group that foregathered in Parson Thayer's library. Jimmy made extravagant and highly colored verses to the bride-to-be, to Sallie Kingsbury, and even to himself. His feet were often lame, but he solemnly assured the company that it was entirely due to circumstances over which he had no control. A wedding was a wedding, said he, and should have its bard; also its dancers and its minstrels.
"We'll have all our friends in Ilion, anyway," said Aleck. They counted up the list. Besides the occupants of the house and those from the Hillside, there would be Doctor Thayer, Susan Stoddard and Angie, Big and Little Simon, and the lawyer.
"And they're all going to dance with the bride," announced Jim. "After me. I'm first choice."
"A dance led, so to speak, by the elusive Monsieur Chatelard?"
The name alone made Jimmy wroth. "It's a dance for which he will pay the fiddler yet!" he prophesied.
"Oh, he's gone this time. Scared out of the country for keeps!" was Aleck's expressed opinion. But that it might or might not be so, was what they all secretly thought.
The day before the wedding was a jewel of a day, such as New England at her best can fling into the lap of early autumn. A wind from the sea, flocks of white cloud scudding across the sapphire sky, and a sun all kindness--such was the day. It was never a "weather breeder" either; but steady, promising good for the morrow.
Many times during the week James and Chamberlain and Agatha had their heads together, planning surprises for the bridal pair. The result was that on Tuesday Jim and Chamberlain borrowed the white motor-car, loaded it down with a large variety of junk, such as food from Sallie's kitchen, flowers and so on, and started for Charlesport. They ran down to the wharf, transferred their loot to the rowboat, and pulled out to the _Sea Gull_, swinging at her mooring in deep water.