n't seem to realize that Eleanor Jamison is married at last,
can you? She took her time if ever anybody did. They do say she was real
taken with that young college professor with the full beard and
spectacles that visited there last summer, and then to think that, after
all, she went and married a man with a smooth face. He wears glasses,
though; that's one point in common.

Eleanor's gone off a good deal lately, don't you think so? You hadn't
noticed it? But then you never was any great hand at noticin', I've
noticed you weren't. Why, the other day when I was there offerin' to
help 'em get ready for the weddin' I noticed that she looked real
_worn_, and there was two or three little fine lines in her
eye-corners--not real _wrinkles_, of course--but we all know that lines
is a forerunner. Her hair's beginnin' to turn, too; I noticed that
comin' out of church last Sunday. I dare say her knowing this made her
less particular than she'd once have been; and after all, marryin' any
husband is a good deal like buyin' a new black silk dress pattern--an
awful risk.

You may look at it on both sides and hold it up to the light, and pull
it to see if it'll fray and try if it'll spot, but you can't be sure
what it'll do till after you've worn it a spell.

There's one advantage to the dress pattern, though--you can make 'em
take it back if you mistrust it won't wear--if you haven't cut into it,
that is--but when you've got a husband, why, you've _got_ him, to have
and to hold, for better and worse and good and all.

Yes, I'm comin' to the weddin'--I declare, when I think how careless
Eleanor is about little things I can't help mistrusting what kind of a
housekeeper she'll turn out. Why, when John's and my invitation came it
was only printed to the church--there wasn't any reception card among
it.

Now I've supplied Eleanor's folks with butter and eggs and spring
chickens for thirty years, and I'd just have gone anyway, for I knew it
was a mistake, but John held out that 'twasn't--that they didn't mean to
have us to the house part; so to settle it I went right over and told
'em. I told Eleanor she mustn't feel put out about it--we was all
mortal--and if it hadn't been for satisfyin' John I'd never have let her
know how careless she'd been--of course I'd made allowance, a weddin'
_is_ upsettin' to the intellect--and so 'twas all right.

I had a real good view of the ceremony; but 'twasn't _their_ fault that
I had; it just happ