l. It was real Brussels lace and I was scared to death for
fear something would happen to it. I warned Dick off until he declared
that the next time he got married the bride should either be out in the
open, or have a mosquito net that wasn't perishable. I'm not going to
tell you about my trousseau because I intend to bring it along to show
you. I want you to be surprised, and oh! and ah! over every single
thing, because it is so wonderful for Alice Fletcher to have such
beautiful clothes. Dick is looking over my shoulder and he says he
thinks it's time I learned that my name is Alice Harding. He says he's
going to have a half-dozen mottoes printed with----

'My name is Harding.
On the Cincinnati hills
I lost the Fletcher!'

on them, and hang them about our happy home. Tell Chicken Little I've
saved a big chunk of bride's cake for her, and I'm dying to see her. It
doesn't seem possible that she is almost as tall as Marian."

The letter ran on with much pleasant chatter of the new home, which was
the same dear old one where Alice had been born, and where the Morton
family had spent the two happy years that were already beginning to seem
a long way off.

Alice had graduated the preceding year, but Uncle Joseph would not
listen either to her plea that she should pay the money back from her
little inheritance, or that she should carry out her plan of teaching.
He said it would be bad enough to give her up to Dick just as they had
all learned to love her--she must stay with them as long as possible.

Dick's letter was as full of nonsense as Dick himself. It was written
with many flourishes to:

"Miss Chicken Little Jane Morton,
Big John Creek,
Morris County, Kansas.

"Dear Miss Morton,

"I would respectfully inform you that your dear friend Alice
Fletcher is no more--there ain't no such person. She made a noble
end in white satin covered with sticky out things, and her stylish
aunt's lace curtain. She looked very lovely, what I could see of her
through the curtain. My dear Miss Morton, I beseech you when you get
married, don't wear a window curtain. Because if you do the groom
and the sympathizing friends can't see how hard you are taking it.
Alice didn't look mournful when the plaguey thing was removed, but
her aunt wept copiously at the train and took all the starch out of
Alice's fresh linen col