“The neatest, prettiest girl in the world, with the trimmest ankles except one,—that’s Maude; and Roy, Edna must be married from my house, and in my church. I claim that as my right. Never should have built the pesky thing that’s been such a plague to me if it had not been for Maude and Edna, and that sermon about the synagogue. Not that I’m sorry, though the bother has worn me some thin. We’ve got a nice man, too, now; had him _two weeks_, and like him tip-top. Neither one nor the other; Ritual nor anti-ritual, but common sense. Don’t mind Ruth Gardner more than if she was a gnat. Yes, yes; a good fellow, who speaks to everybody, slaps you on your back sometimes, and acts as if he liked the old man; and he must marry Dotty. She’ll be the first bride in church, and I’ll have it trimmed if it costs me my farm. Yes, Dot must go from my house.” Edna favored this, and as Roy did not object, it was arranged that after a few weeks stay with Aunt Jerry, Edna should go to Rocky Point and be married in Uncle Phil’s church. Christmas was the very latest time of which Roy would hear. “Georgie said I was not to wait,” was the argument which he used with all, and which finally prevailed; and so, after a week at Leighton, Edna returned to Allen’s Hill, accompanied by Roy, who, during the six weeks that she staid there, spent nearly half his time there and on the road. “He was as tickled as a boy with a new top,” Aunt Jerry said, but she liked him nevertheless, and paid him every possible attention, and made Parker House rolls and Graham muffins alternately, and used her best dishes every day, and hired a little girl to wait upon the table when he was there, because he “was used to such fol-de-rol,” and it pleased Edna too. Aunt Jerry seemed greatly changed; and if uniform kindness and gentleness of manner could avail to blot out all remembrance of a past which had not been pleasant, it was surely blotted from Edna’s mind, and she felt only love and gratitude for the peculiar woman who stood upon the door-step and cried when at last the carriage which was to take Roy and Edna to the train, drove away from her door and left her all alone. CHAPTER XLIX. THE WEDDING. “Nobody now, Tabby, but you and I,” said Aunt Jerry, as she re-entered her lonely house, and taking her cat in her arms, she cried like a child over the dumb creature, which tried in so many ways to evince its appreciation of this unusual caress.