"Dear me," sez I, "I'm sorry, but if I can do any good I'll come up, I s'pose you'll have a doctor." "Oh yes," sez he, "there'll be two or three, besides lots of lawyers, and poets, and editors." "You don't say so," sez I, "why what will you du with them all?" "Oh Mary will take care of them," sez he, "she does those things very well, indeed, considering she was brought up in the country." "But I thought you wanted us to take care of her," sez I. "Why, of course you will all make yourselves as agreeable as you can; there will be lots of harnsome wimmen there, and I haint the least doubt we shall have a pleasant party." "A party!" sez I, "is Miss Beebe a going to have a party?" "Certainly," sez he, a looking puzzled; "didn't you understand that by the card and the note?" I felt my heart rise up in my mouth, and I could have begun to dance on the stun walk. I do believe nothing on arth makes a feller feel so happy as to find out that somebody he can't help but like, but has been a thinking hard things about, don't desarve them. Cousin John kept a looking at me, and I begun to feel awful streaked, for it seemed to me as if he suspected all that I'd been a thinking agin his wife. Arter a minit, I up and took my hand out of my pocket, and I took hold of his'n, and, sez I-- "Cousin John, I've been making a darned fool of myself; I didn't know what this ere piece of pasteboard meant, and I"-- "Never mind, Cousin Jonathan," sez he, all of a sudden shaking my hand, "you know what it means now--so come up on Thursday. Now I think of it--you had better git a new suit of clothes; that blue coat and those shiny brass buttons did very well for Weathersfield; but here something a little more stylish will be better--supposing you go over to the Broadway tailors and let them fit you out." "Not as you know on," sez I, a taking hold of the edge of my coat, and a dustin off the buttons with my red silk pocket handkercher. "The picter that they printed of me in the Express newspaper was taken in these clothes; and if you'd jest as livs, I'll keep 'em on."