"Thank you, and no thank you, Mr. Duggan. I'm not certain if I've just been insulted, laughed at or both. But I can walk perfectly well without your elbow while I'm deciding."

His grin became dazzling, and without a glance aside he dropped her coat in the last pew, then took a rather deliberate grip on her elbow as they moved toward the front pews.

For the next five minutes Father Waldron outlined the procedures and rituals of the wedding service, explaining that both bride and groom had elected to walk up the aisle with their respective parents and have the attendants do so as pairs. Winnie had known this, of course, but had scarcely given it a second thought until now, seated on a hard wooden pew with Jo-Jo Duggan's knees sprawled wide, one of them only a scant inch from her own. He straightened, turned more fully in Father Waldron's direction and hung his wrist on the pew behind her.

Not only a flirt, but an accomplished flirt!

The door at the rear of the church slammed, and scampering footsteps clicked up the aisle, causing every head to turn.

There stood a birdlike woman, pulling black gloves from her fingers, clutching a portfolio against her coat front. "I'm sorry, Father. I would have been here sooner, but somebody fed my cat beer and got it drunk and…"

The rest was drowned out by laughter, and the twittery woman became more flustered. Father Waldron's voice echoed in the empty church. "Lent just being over, the cat probably needed it, Mrs. Collingswood."

Beside Winnie, Jo-Jo Duggan's chest shook with laughter, and his eyes glinted as if he himself might very well have pulled such pranks once or twice in his day and sympathized not with the cat, but with the prankster.

"We're ready for the music whenever you are, Mrs. Collingswood," Father advised benevolently.