der me from bein' a young girl all my life.'

"I wish to goodness," she went on, "that I could ricollect what I wore
to Mary Andrews' weddin'. I know I didn't wear my weddin' dress, and I
know I went, but to save my life I can't call up the dress I had on.
It ain't like me to forgit the clothes I used to wear, but I can't
call it up. However, what I wore to Mary Andrews' weddin' ain't got
anything to do with Mary Andrews' dinner-party."

Aunt Jane paused and scratched her head reflectively with a knitting
needle. Evidently she was loath to go on with her story till the
memory of that wedding garment should return to her.

"I was readin' the other day," she continued, "about somethin' they've
got off yonder in Washington, some sort of bureau that tells folks
what the weather'll be, and warns the ships about settin' off on a
voyage when there's a storm ahead. And says I to myself, 'Do you
reckon they'll ever git so smart that they can tell what sort o'
weather there is ahead o' two people jest married and settin' out on
the voyage that won't end till death parts 'em? and what sort o'
weather they're goin' to have six months from the weddin' day?' The
world's gittin' wiser every day, child, but there ain't nobody wise
enough to tell what sort of a husband a man's goin' to make, nor what
sort of a wife a woman's goin' to make, nor how a weddin' is goin' to
turn out. I've watched folks marryin' for more'n seventy years, and I
don't know much more about it than I did when I was a ten-year-old
child. I've seen folks marry when it looked like certain destruction
for both of 'em, and all at once they'd take a turn that'd surprise
everybody, and things would come out all right with 'em. There was
Wick Harris and Virginia Matthews. Wick was jest such a boy as Dick
Elrod, and Virginia was another Annie Crawford. She'd never done a
stitch o' sewin' nor cooked a meal o' victuals in her life, and I
ricollect her mother sayin' she didn't know which she felt sorriest
for, Wick or Virginia, and she wished to goodness there was a law to
keep such folks from marryin'. But, bless your life! instead o' comin'
to shipwreck like Dick and Annie, they settled down as steady as any
old married couple you ever saw. Wick quit his drinkin' and gamblin',
and Virginia, why, there wasn't a better housekeeper in the state nor
a better mother'n she got to be.

"And then I've seen 'em marry when everything looked bright ahead and
everybody was certain