Free The Strange Proposal by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

what you’re letting yourself in for, Betty dear!”
    “Oh, I don’t mind,” said the girl, with a happy smile. “We’ll have a good time. Good-bye. See you tonight sometime.”
    “Well, if you get tired of Sam, just stop at that place where we took lunch on the way here and wait for us. We’ll take him over and let you have Miss Petty, or Cousin Eliza Froud, you know.”
    “All right,” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’ll remember, but I won’t get tired of my bargain, so don’t look for us.” And she hurried out of the dining room.
    She found young Sam with a suitcase, standing uncertainly by the door, an anxious eye on the dining room entrance.
    “Didn’t they can it?” he asked eagerly. “There must be some reason then. They likely wantta talk over the wedding and say how they hate somebody, or they would.”
    “You uncanny child!” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “What made you think of that?”
    “Oh, I’ve heard ’em when they didn’t know I was listening. They’ve made me like a lot of folks different times, talking against ’em.”
    “You’re a scream!” said Mary Elizabeth. “I foresee we’re going to have the time of our lives. Now, put your baggage in behind and hop in. Let’s get started, or somebody will try to go along with us.”
    “You said it!” said Sam, jamming his suitcase into the back of the car and letting down the cover carefully. “This is a peach of a car, isn’t it?”
    “It is rather nice,” said his cousin, settling down to her wheel as Sam sprang in, slamming the door proudly, as if he were the owner.
    They rolled away from the hotel and around the little circle park in front, and two blocks farther on came to a halt before a candy shop.
    “Like chocolates?” asked Mary Elizabeth, fishing around in her handbag for her billfold.
    “Sure thing!” said Sam, with shining eyes.
    She handed him a five-dollar bill.
    “Well, slide in there and buy as much as you want of anything that appeals to you. Get several kinds.”
    Sam took the money and crammed it into his pocket with the studied indifference toward money he had noticed in all male persons when they were attending a young lady.
    He came out so eager, he had almost lost his grown-up manner.
    “I got several kinds, because I wasn’t sure which you’d like best,” he explained as he climbed in and shut the door importantly again. He felt it was great, her using him this way, as any lady would send a young man on her errands. And she hadn’t limited him as to how much to buy. He almost forgot that he wasn’t driving the car.
    “That’s fine,” said the lady, curving smoothly into traffic again. “I like them all. We’re going to have a good time!”
    “I’ll say!’” said the young cavalier. “Here’s yer change!”
    He almost felt that she was another boy, and he dropped easily into his own natural talk.
    “Oh, you’d better keep the change for any expenses we have. There is at least one ferry to cross, if I remember rightly, and there’ll be gas. You’ll need more than that. Just put it into your pocket and look after things for me, won’t you? It’s such a relief not to have to bother. It’s so nice to have a man along.”
    He gave her an appreciative grin and after a minute said, “Say, d’ya know, you remind me an awful lot of my scoutmaster, Mary Beth?”
    “Your scoutmaster?” said Mary Elizabeth, with keen interest in her eyes. “Who is he? I hope he’s nice.”
    “He is! He’s a peach of a man. Why, he’s Mr. Saxon, the one that was the best man last night at the wedding. You know him. You were talking to him a lot last night. Only he didn’t look a bit like himself in those glad rags.”
    “Glad rags?” said Mary Elizabeth. “Doesn’t he usually wear glad rags?”
    “Naw, he wears khaki mostly, and flannel shirts and leggings. He’s a crackerjack in the woods.”
    “He was rather nice, wasn’t he?” said Mary Elizabeth with dreamy eyes, as she guided her car out of