"Old Mr. Price is eighty-nine years old, Laura says," said I. "Yes. He was the minister who married my father and mother, and has always been our minister," answered my lover. And so it was settled. Laura was rolling up tape, Monday morning, as quietly as if there were to be no wedding. For my part, I wandered up and down, and could not set myself about anything. "Old Mr. Price! and a great long prayer! And that is to be the end of it! My wedding-dress all made, and not to be worn! Flowers ditto! Nowhere to go, and so I shall stay at home. He has no house; so Taffy is to come to mine!" And here I burst out laughing; for it was as well to laugh as cry; and besides, I said a great many things on purpose to have Laura say what she always did,--and which, after all, it was sweet to me to hear. Those were silly days! "No, Del,--that is not the end of it,--only the beginning of it,--of a happy, useful, good life,--your path growing brighter and broader every year,--and--and--we won't talk of the garlands, dear; but your heart will have bridal-blossoms, whether your head has or not." Laura kissed me, with tears in her sisterly eyes. She never talks fine, and went directly out of the room after this. I thought that women shouldn't swear at all, or, if they did, should break their oaths as gracefully as I did mine, when I whispered it was "_so_ good of him, to be willing I should stay in the cottage where I had always lived, and where every rose-tree and lilac knew me!" And that was true, too. But not all the truth. What need to be telling truths all the time? And what had women tongues for, but to hold them sometimes? Perhaps "he," too, would have preferred a journey to Europe, and a house on the Mill-Dam. Things gradually settled themselves. My troubles seemed coming to a close by mechanical pressure. As to the name, it was better than Fire, Famine, and Slaughter,--and I was to take it into consideration, any way, and get used to it, if I could. The other trouble I put aside for the moment. After it was concluded on that the wedding should be strictly private, it was not necessary to buy my aunt's present under a few days, and I could have the decided advantage, in that way, of avoiding a duplicate. The Monday of my marriage sped away swiftly. Polly had come up early to say to "Laury" (for Polly was a free and independent American girl of forty-five) that "there'd be so much goin' to the door, and such, Betsy Ann had best be handy by, to answer the bell. Fin'ly, she's down there with her bunnet off, and goin' to stay."