Among 'em wuz a little girl with a red spot on her forward, indicatin' that she wuz married, but don't spoze that she had gone to keepin' house yet. Girls are married sometimes at six or seven, but their husbands don't claim 'em till they're ten or twelve. Good land! they're nothin' but babies then; I used to hold Tirzah Ann on my lap at that age. Widders never marry again, and are doomed to a wretched life of degradation and slavery; I guess that is the reason why some on 'em had ruther be burnt up with their relics than to live on to suffer so. How much they need the religion of love and mercy our Saviour come to teach! Our missionaries are doin' a blessed work, literally loosin' the chains of the captives, and settin' at liberty them that are bound. One evenin' we met a bridal procession, the groom was ridin' in a peacock-shaped gilt chariot drawed by four horses, accompanied by a band of music; a big crowd of friends follered him, and coolies bearing torches; it seemed as if he wanted to show himself off all he could. When they got to the house of the bride, they took her in a closed palanquin and meached away to the house of the groom. As in some other countries, females play a minor part in the tune of life; wimmen and children can't eat at the table with their husband and father, and he sets to the table and she sets down on the floor. Miss Meechim exclaimed loudly about the awful position of wimmen here, but Arvilly told her that "though wimmen at home had crep' up a little so she could set to the table and pour the tea, yet at banquets of honor she wuz never seen and at the political table, where men proudly sot and partook, wimmen still sot on the floor and couldn't git a bite." Miss Meechim didn't dain a reply, but turned her talk onto the dretful idee of widders bein' burnt with their dead husbands. The English won't allow it where they can help it, but it is still practised in way back regions, and Arvilly said that she believed that some American widders, who had had their property took from them by the family of the deceased and had their unborn children willed away from 'em by law, suffered enough sight more than they would if they had burnt themselves up with their relics; to say nothin' of widders bein' burnt up twice in America, first through their own fiery agony, and then seein' their children sot fire to by whiskey dealt to 'em by the will of the rulers of the land. Arvilly always would have the last word. Miss Meechim kinder snorted and tosted her head and held in.