as if I'd been waiting for you ever
since I was born, and couldn't get you too soon."

"Do you really want me to marry you so much, Pitt?"

"Never wanted anything so bad in my life."

"Didn't you wonder I wasn't more surprised to see you to-day?"

"Nothing surprises me in women-folks."

"Well, it was because I've dreamed of a funeral three nights running.
Do you know what that's a sign of?"

Pitt never winked an eyelash; he had learned his lesson. With a sigh
of relief that his respected stepmother was out of hearing, he
responded easily, "I s'pose it's a sign somebody's dead or going to
die."

"No, it isn't: dreams go by contraries. It's a sign there's going to
be a wedding."

"I'm glad to know that much, but I wish while you was about it you'd
have dreamt a little more, and found out when the wedding was going to
be."

"I did; and if you weren't the stupidest man alive you could guess."

"I know I'm slow-witted," said Pitt meekly, for he was in a mood to
endure anything, "but I've asked you to have me on every day there is
except the one I'm afraid to name."

"You know I've had plenty of offers."

"Unless all the men-folks are blind, you must have had a thousand,
Huldah."

Huldah was distinctly pleased. As a matter of fact she had had only
five; but five offers in the State of Maine implies a superhuman power
of attraction not to be measured by the casual reader.

"Are you sorry you called me a mass of superstition?"

"I wish I'd been horsewhipped where I stood."

"Very well, then. The first time you wouldn't marry me at all unless
you could have me Friday, and of course I wouldn't take you Friday
under those circumstances. Now you say you're glad and willing to
marry me any day in the week, and so I'll choose Friday of my own
accord. I'll marry you to-morrow, Pitt: and"--here she darted a
roguishly sibylline glance at the clouds--"I have a water-proof; have
you an umbrella for Saturday?"

Pitt took her at her word, you may be sure, and married her the next
day, but I wish you could have seen it rain on Saturday! There never
was such a storm in Pleasant River. The road to the Edgewood station
was a raging flood; but though the bride and groom were drenched to
the skin they didn't take cold--they were too happy. Love within is a
beautiful counter-irritant.

Huldah didn't mind waiting a little matter of nineteen years, so long
as her maiden flag sank in a sea of triumph at the end; and it is but