ushin' river, that swept along discontented and
onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.

And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
souls bathed in blissful repose!

[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]

It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry
eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
vest.

Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.

And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.

I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.

And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
me.

[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]

Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
miserable.

Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).

And the