Her romance began and ended there, although she was quite
unconscious of this herself, and believed that she was deeply
in love with him.
"What will be the result, Mary, when he arrives in the flesh
and she is compelled to deal with 'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson'
as a real, live man, instead of a nebulous 'party of the second part'
in the marriage ceremony?" queried Peggy, as she hemmed table-napkins
for Aunt Olivia, sitting on her well-scoured sandstone steps,
and carefully putting all thread-clippings and ravellings
into the little basket which Aunt Olivia had placed there
for that purpose.
"It may transform her from a self-centered old maid into a woman
for whom marriage does not seem such an incongruous thing," I said.
The day on which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was expected
Peggy and I went over. We had planned to remain away,
thinking that the lovers would prefer their first meeting to
be unwitnessed, but Aunt Olivia insisted on our being present.
She was plainly nervous; the abstract was becoming concrete.
Her little house was in spotless, speckless order from top to bottom.
Aunt Olivia had herself scrubbed the garret floor and swept
the cellar steps that very morning with as much painstaking
care as if she expected that Mr.
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