ong way from being the best."

"Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?" exclaimed Anne, recovering
her power of speech under this second shock.

"Yes. I could have had him any time these twenty years if I'd lifted
my finger. But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
perambulating haystack like that?"

"I am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all possible happiness,"
said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt. She was not
prepared for such an occasion. She had never imagined herself offering
betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.

"Thanks, I knew you would," said Miss Cornelia. "You are the first of
my friends to know it."

"We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia," said
Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.

"Oh, you won't lose me," said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally. "You
don't suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? 'From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
Lord deliver us.' Marshall is coming to live at my place. I'm sick
and tired of hired men. That Jim Hastings I've got this summer is
positively the worst of the species. He would drive anyone to getting
married. What do you think? He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
a big churning of cream over the yard. And not one whit concerned
about it was he! Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
the land. Wasn't that like a man? I told him I wasn't in the habit of
fertilising my back yard with cream."

"Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia," said
Gilbert, solemnly; "but," he added, unable to resist the temptation to
tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne's imploring eyes, "I fear your day of
independence is done. As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
determined man."

"I like a man who can stick to a thing," retorted Miss Cornelia. "Amos
Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn't. You never saw such
a weather-vane. He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
changed his mind and swum out again. Wasn't that like a man? Marshall
would have stuck to it and drowned."

"And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me," persisted Gilbert.

"He wouldn't be an Elliott if he hadn't. I'm thankful he has. It will
be real fun to make him mad. And you can generally do something with a
tempery man when it come