her at which
end of his route she preferred to live, New York, or Portland, Maine, and
if in New York, would she prefer Brooklyn or Harlem?

Fannie quickly decided upon Harlem, for, as Marie said, "There one only
need give the street name and number, while very few people yet realize
that Brooklyn really is in New York."

This important matter settled, the Penney girls arose in their might upon
the wings of ambition. There should be a church wedding.

Now the Penneys were, as all their forbears had been, Congregationalists;
but that church had no middle aisle, besides, as there was no giving away
of the bride in the service, there was little chance for pomp and
ceremony. It was discovered that the groom's parents had been
Episcopalians, and though he was liberal to the degree of indifference
upon such matters, it was decided that to have the wedding in St. Peter's
would be a delicate compliment to him.

All the spring the village dressmaker has been at work upon the gowns of
bride and of bridesmaids, of whom there are to be six, and now the cards
are out and the groom's name also, the L at the last moment having been
found to stand for Liberty. If they had consulted the groom, he would
have decried all fuss, for Fannie's chief attraction was that he thought
her an unspoiled, simple-minded country girl.

The hour was originally set for the morning, but as Fannie saw in her
fashion paper that freckled people often developed a peculiarly charming
complexion when seen by lamplight, the time was changed to eight at
night, in spite of the complications it caused.

A week before the invitations were issued Fannie came to see me and after
some preamble said: "Mrs. Evan, I want my wedding to be good form, and
I'd like to do the swell thing all through. Now the _Parlour Journal_
says that the front pews that are divided off by a white ribbon should be
for the bride's folks on one side of the aisle and the groom's on the
other. Mr. Middleton hasn't any people near by enough to come, so I
thought I'd have the Bluff folks sit on that side."

"The Bluff people?" I queried, in amazement. "You surely aren't going to
invite them? Do you know any of them?"

"Well, not intimately, but Mrs. Ponsonby has been to the house for eggs,
and Mrs. Latham's horse dropped a shoe last week and father set it, and
the Vanderveer boy's pony ran away into our front yard the other day, so
I don't feel as if they were strangers and to be left out.