twice, but jumped from his horse and walked in, making a bow at the door, and waiting for your mother to walk in first. Well, sure enough, it did rain in a short time, and thunder, and lighten, and blow, as if the house would come down; and the strange gentleman sat down close by Emma, and tried to keep her from being frightened, for she looked as pale as death; and when the lightning flashed bright, she covered up her face with her hands. It kept on thundering and raining till bed-time, when your grandfather offered him a bed, and told him he must stay till morning. Everybody was taken with him, for he talked like a book, and looked as if he knew more than all the books in the world. He told his name, and all about himself—that he was a young lawyer just commencing business in a town near by (the very town we are now living in); that he had been on a journey, and was on his way home, which he had expected to reach that night. He seemed to hate to go away so the next morning, that your grandfather asked him to come and see him again—and he took him at his word, and came back the very next week. This time he didn’t hide from anybody what he came for, for he courted your mother in good earnest, and never left her, or gave her any peace, till she had promised to be his wife, which I believe she was very willing to be, from the first night she saw him.”
“Nay, Aunt Patty,” said Mrs. Worth, “I must correct you in some of your items; your imagination is a little too vivid.”
Edmund went behind his mother’s chair, and putting his hands playfully over her ears, begged Aunt Patty to go on, and give her imagination full scope.
“And show us the wedding-dress, and tell us all about it,” said Bessy. “It is pleasanter to hear of mother’s wedding, than Parson Broomfield’s funeral.”
“But that’s the way, darling—a funeral and a wedding, a birth and a death, all mixed up, the world over. We must take things as they come, and be thankful for all. Do you see this white sprigged satin, and this bit of white lace? The wedding-dress was made of the satin, and trimmed round the neck and sleeves with the lace, and the money it cost would have clothed a poor family
