on me as the
summer waves break upon Gibraltar. I was reared in that atmosphere of
reserve. As I have already said, in another chapter, I never knew a
member of my father's family to kiss another member of it except once,
and that at a death-bed. And our village was not a kissing community.
The kissing and caressing ended with courtship--along with the deadly
piano-playing of that day.

She had the heart-free laugh of a girl. It came seldom, but when it
broke upon the ear it was as inspiring as music. I heard it for the last
time when she had been occupying her sickbed for more than a year, and I
made a written note of it at the time--a note not to be repeated.

To-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary. We were married in her
father's house in Elmira, New York, and went next day, by special train,
to Buffalo, along with the whole Langdon family, and with the Beechers
and the Twichells, who had solemnized the marriage. We were to live in
Buffalo, where I was to be one of the editors of the Buffalo "Express,"
and a part owner of the paper. I knew nothing about Buffalo, but I had
made my household arrangements there through a friend, by letter. I had
instructed him to find a boarding-house of as respectable a character as
my light salary as editor would command. We were received at about nine
o'clock at the station in Buffalo, and were put into several sleighs and
driven all over America, as it seemed to me--for, apparently, we turned
all the corners in the town and followed all the streets there were--I
scolding freely, and characterizing that friend of mine in very
uncomplimentary words for securing a boarding-house that apparently had
no definite locality. But there was a conspiracy--and my bride knew of
it, but I was in ignorance. Her father, Jervis Langdon, had bought and
furnished a new house for us in the fashionable street, Delaware Avenue,
and had laid in a cook and housemaids, and a brisk and electric young
coachman, an Irishman, Patrick McAleer--and we were being driven all
over that city in order that one sleighful of those people could have
time to go to the house, and see that the gas was lighted all over it,
and a hot supper prepared for the crowd. We arrived at last, and when I
entered that fairy place my indignation reached high-water mark, and
without any reserve I delivered my opinion to that friend of mine for
being so stupid as to put us into a boarding-house whose terms would be
far out of my r