e in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.

And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
Josiah hitched the mair.

We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
life.

And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."

A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
first rate.

I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of
time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
the heads of it.

It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
bare heads.

She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"

She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
privilege, to speak in its praise.

I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
whose name vuz once Smith.

I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
every word she said.

But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.

How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how w