But there are souls who laugh to scorn any such trifling obstructions as lack of formal invitation, and one of these was Sol Mantring’s wife. She tormented her husband until that skipper found something that would enable him to pay the expense of running his sloop to New York and back; his wife sailed with him as sole passenger, and on the morning of the wedding she presented herself at the church an hour before the appointed time, and in raiment such as had not been seen in that portion of New York since the days when sullen brownstone fronts began to disfigure farms that had been picturesque and smiling. She laid siege to the sexton; she told him who she was, and how she had held Phil in her arms again and again when he had the whooping-cough, and yet again when he had scarlet fever, although she ran the risk of taking the dread malady home to her own children, and the sexton, in self-defence, was finally obliged to give her a seat in the gallery, over the rail of which, as near the altar as possible, her elaborately-trimmed Sunday bonnet caught the eyes of every one who entered. What all Haynton did not know about that wedding, three days later, was not worth knowing: it was a thousand times more satisfactory than the combined reports in the morning papers, all of which Mrs. Mantring carried home with her and preserved between the leaves of her family Bible for the remainder of her days, and every one in the village read them, even Sarah Tweege, who magnanimously waived the apparent slight implied by Phil not having his wedding-suit made by her. Mrs. Hayn, Senior, no longer had to wish in vain for a place in the city where she might sometimes forget the cares and humdrum of farm-house life. Risky as the experiment seemed from the society point of view, Lucia, backed by Margie, insisted upon making her at home in the city whenever she chose to come; and, although some friends of the family would sometimes laugh in private over the old lady’s peculiarities of accent and grammar, there were others who found real pleasure in the shrewd sense and great heart that had been developed by a life in which the wife had been obliged to be the partner and equal of her husband. Before a year passed there was another wedding. Agnes Dinon changed her name without any misgivings; she had previously confessed to Lucia, who in spite of the difference in years seemed to become her favorite confidante, that she had always admired some things about Mr. Marge, and that the business-misfortunes which had compelled him to become the active manager of the Haynton Bay Improvement Company seemed to supply what had been lacking in his character and manner.