having a
romantic streak in her own composition, did not sympathize altogether
with this heroic remedy for Pomona's disease.

"No, ma'am," said Pomona, "not long. When I thought of Mrs. General
Jackson and Tom Thumb, I couldn't help thinkin' that I must have looked
pretty much the same to my husband, who, I knowed now, had only been
makin'-believe to make-believe. An' besides, I couldn't be angry very
long for laughin, for when he come back in a minute, as mad as a March
hare, an' said they wouldn't let me out nor him nuther, I fell to
laughin' ready to crack my sides.

"'They say,' said he, as soon as he could speak straight, 'that we can't
go out without another certificate from the doctor. I told 'em I'd go
myself an' see him about it but they said no, I couldn't, for if they
did that way everybody who ever was sent here would be goin' out the
next day to see about leavin'. I didn't want to make no fuss, so I told
them I'd write a letter to the doctor and tell him to send an order
that would soon show them whether we could go out or not. They said
that would be the best thing to do, an so I'm goin' to write it this
minute,'--which he did.

"'How long will we have to wait?' says I, when the letter was done.

"'Well,' says he, 'the doctor can't get this before to-morrow mornin',
an' even if he answers right away, we won't get our order to go out
until the next day. So we'll jus' have to grin an' bear it for a day an'
a half.'

"'This is a lively old bridal-trip,' said I,--'dry falls an' a lunertic
asylum.'

"'We'll try to make the rest of it better,' said he.

"But the next day wasn't no better. We staid in our room all day, for we
didn't care to meet Mrs. Jackson an' her crazy brother, an' I'm sure we
didn't want to see the mean creatures who kept the house. We knew well
enough that they only wanted us to stay so that they could get more
board-money out of us."

"I should have broken out," cried Euphemia. "I would never have staid
an hour in that place, after I found out what it was, especially on a
bridal trip."

"If we'd done that," said Pomona, "they'd have got men after us, an'
then everybody would have thought we was real crazy. We made up our
minds to wait for the doctor's letter, but it wasn't much fun. An' I
didn't tell no romantic stories to fill up the time. We sat down an'
behaved like the commonest kind o' people. You never saw anybody sicker
of romantics than I was when I thought of them two l