I spoke with a simple, serious air, as if I had most perfect faith in my words, and a general gentle smile of amusement went round the circle, rippling into a laugh out-right, on the faces of some of the gayer girls. Miss Dotha said: "Oh, come, now, Mr. Henderson, you are too severe." "Severe!" said I; "I can't understand what you mean, Miss Dotha. You don't mean, of course, to intimate that Miss Ellery is _not_ in love with the man she has married?" "Oh, now!" said Miss Dotha, laughing, "you know perfectly, Mr. Henderson--we all know--it's pretty well understood, that this wasn't _exactly_ what you call a love-match; in fact, I know," she added with the assurance of a confidant, "that she had great difficulty in _making up her mind_; but her family were very anxious for the match, and his family thought it would be such a good thing for him to marry and settle down, you know, so one way and another she concluded to take him." "And, after all, Will Marshall is a good-natured creature," said Miss Smith. "And going to Europe is such a temptation," said Miss Brown. "And she must marry some time," said Miss Jones, "and one can't have _every_ thing, you know. Will is certain to be kind to her, and let her have her own way." "For my part," said pretty Miss Green, "I'm free to say that I don't blame any girl that has a chance to get such a fortune, for doing it as Miss Ellery has. I've always been poor, and pinched and plagued; never can go any where, or see anything, or dress as I want to; and if I had a chance, such as Miss Ellery had, I think I should be a fool not to take it." "Well," said Miss Black, reflectively, "the only question is, couldn't Miss Ellery have waited and found a man who had more intellect, and more culture, whom she could respect and love, and who had money, too? She had such extraordinary beauty and such popular manners, I should have thought she might." "Oh, well," said Miss Dotha, "she was getting on--she was three-and-twenty already--and nobody of just the right sort had turned up--'a bird in the hand'--you know. After all, I dare say she can love Will Marshall well enough." _Well enough!_ The cool philosophic tone of this phrase smote on my ear curiously. "And pray, fair ladies, how much is 'well enough?'" said I. "Well enough to keep the peace," said Miss Green, "and each let the other alone, to go their own ways and have no fighting." Miss Green was a pretty, spicy little body, with a pair of provoking hazel eyes; who talked like an unprincipled little pirate, though she generally acted like a nice woman. In less than a year after, by the by, she married a home missionary, in Maine, and has been a devoted wife and mother in a little parish somewhere in the region of Skowhegan, ever since.