er from the point of view of the world
at large. Do you know," she added, "that isn't at all a bad idea of
yours. We could put on the cards 'No silver,' just as they put 'No
flowers.' It was quite a brilliant suggestion, Fred."

"There are always fools, though, who will disregard such a notice just
from sheer contrariness."

"Oh, if we once gave them warning, and they chose to send
notwithstanding, it would be their own fault," exclaimed Josephine,
buoyantly. "I should hope there would be a few such people, for I
should be very glad to have more silver. It's not that I object to the
silver, but because I wish to give a loophole of escape to the people
who wouldn't send it unless they felt obliged to. I should expect
surely to receive quite a lot in one way or another. And it would be
convenient, love, for Winona did not get any too much when she was
married. Everything ran to furniture and books, and out of the little
silver she received their were seven large salad forks, all of which
had her initials on them, so that she couldn't change them."

There are people who refrain from having their wills drawn on the score
that they would be likely to die if they did. While I have no sympathy
with this superstition, I must confess that a formal celebration of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of your wedding-day has always seemed to me to
savor of willingness to have your account with life audited, with a
view to being able to sink quietly and becomingly into your grave
whenever you were called. In view of the fact that, though each of us
has trifling ailments, neither of us is seriously disabled, it seemed a
little soon to be taking account of stock and talking of putting up the
shutters forever. Yet time's figures are not to be gainsaid, and
especially in the Land of Liberty people are not allowed to forget that
they are growing old even if they have no tall sons and daughters to
attest the fact. What boots it to protest that we feel as young as we
ever did? We might be allowed to say so unchallenged, provided we did
not try to act on the assumption, but the youths without parents and
the newly created species would soon bring us to our senses if we were
to assert ourselves in society so as to cause them the slightest
inconvenience. The middle-aged are allowed to drive and go to the
theatre, and are tolerated at weddings on the ground that they may have
given a wedding present, and at garden parties where there i