My Friend the Chauffeur Part 46

"I'm not angry with you, but with myself," I said. And then for a minute I forgot Ralph and Beechy, and remembered only Maida. "Don't think I knew," I said. "If I had, I wouldn't--"

"Oh, don't say you wouldn't. I love to feel you _had_ to," the Angel cried. "I hold you to your word, oh, with all my heart in my right to you. Beechy, your Chauffeulier and I--are engaged."

"There!" the child exclaimed, with a look at Ralph I couldn't fathom.

"Didn't I tell you so?"

"Well, it doesn't matter _now_, does it?" was his retort. "How shall I feel if you don't wish Miss Destrey your best wishes?"

"Oh, I do, I do," exclaimed the strange child. "And I congratulate the Chauffeulier. But he must do some congratulating too. I'm going to put up my hair, come out in a long dress, and be engaged to Sir Ralph."

Maida's great eyes were greater than ever. "Beechy!" she protested. "You aren't fourteen!"

"No, I know I'm not; but I'm seventeen. And when I told Ralph that, he proposed at once. You see he's been my father confessor ever since we've been on this trip, so he knows all that's best and worst of me; and I do think we shall have real fun when we're married. I told Mamma I'd have no Princes on _my_ ranch, and I won't. But if she's fool enough to take that man, after all, she and I can visit each other's ranches after this, and we'll be all right. Mine's going to be in England or Scotland in summer, and in winter I'm to live with Felicite and the duck. Oh, I shall be happy, and so will Ralph, I hope. But I never thought a good democrat like Papa's daughter would go and marry a man with a t.i.tle."

"A mere baronet. It needn't go against the grain much," remarked Sir Ralph. "Think how much worse it is for your poor cousin!"

"Why?"

"To marry a 'real live lord,' who will some day be a marquis."

"Oh!" exclaimed Beechy. "She who said she would like to teach other American girls a lesson."

"I didn't know," Maida faltered.

"What?" asked Ralph. "You didn't tell her?"

"I forgot all about it," I said. "But Maida, dearest, it doesn't matter.

I--"

"Nothing matters but you," she said.

"And you," I added.

THE END