of their joint home, both in festal attire, and
both in the state of pleasurable excitement that follows any great
change, and that precludes an immediate return to the commonplace
routine of daily life.

"I might just as well be sewin' or mendin'," said Mrs. Williams, "but it
seems like Sunday or Christmas day, and I don't feel like settlin' down
to anything."

"There's nothing like a weddin' for makin' you feel unsettled," said
Mrs. Martin, as she smoothed down her black silk dress. "It'll be a long
time before we get over this day."

"It was a pretty weddin', wasn't it?" said Mrs. Williams, "And I never
saw a happier lookin' couple than Anna Belle and Henry. Most brides and
grooms look more like scared rabbits than anything else, but Anna Belle
and Henry were so happy they actually forgot to be scared. I reckon they
think that married life's a smooth, straight road with flowers on both
sides, just like that garden path. You and me have been over it, and we
know better."

"They'll have their trials," smiled Mrs. Martin, "but if they love each
other, they can stand whatever comes."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Williams, "love's like a rubber tire; it softens the
jolts and carries you easy over the rough places in the road."

"Henry was the image of his father," said Mrs. Martin dreamily.

"I couldn't help thinkin' of myself when I looked at Anna Belle," said
Mrs. Williams. "You may not believe it, but I was as slim as Anna Belle,
when I was her age."

"I wish their fathers could have seen them," sighed Mrs. Martin.

Mrs. Williams leaned toward her companion. "Maybe they did," she said in
a half whisper. "I'm no believer in table-walkin' and such as that, but
many a time I've felt the dead just as near me as you are, and I
wouldn't be at all surprised if Henry's father and Anna Belle's father
were at the weddin'."

"Every weddin' makes you think of your own weddin'," said Mrs. Martin
timidly.

"So it does," assured Mrs. Williams, "and I was married just such a day
as this. We'd set the fifteenth of May for our weddin', but Aunt Martha
McDavid said May was an unlucky month, and so we changed it to the first
of June."

"I was married in the fall," said Mrs. Martin placidly. "I remember one
of my dresses was a plaid silk, green and brown and yellow, and the
first time I put it on, Henry's father went out in the yard and pulled
some leaves off the sugar maples, and laid 'em on my lap, and said they
matched the color