beer, with tea and
coffee, portioned out and ready for the pots, the latter mixed with
fresh-laid eggs, and smelling strongly of old Java, and the former as
fragrant as two and one-half dollars per pound could buy.

Aunt Betsy was very happy, for this, the brightest, balmiest day of all,
was Katy's wedding day, and in the dining-room the table was already set
with the new chinaware and silver, a joint Christmas gift from Helen and
Katy to their good Aunt Hannah, as real mistress of the house.

"Not plated-ware, but the gen-oo-ine article," Aunt Betsy had explained
at least twenty times to those who came to see the silver, and she
handled it proudly now as she took it from the flannel bags where Mrs.
Deacon Bannister said it must be kept, and placed it on a side table.

The coffee-urn was Katy's, so was the teakettle and the massive pitcher,
but the rest was "ours," Aunt Betsy complacently reflected as she
contemplated the glittering array, end then hurried off to see what was
burning on the stove, or "spell" Uncle Ephraim, working industriously at
the ice-cream, out on the back stoop, stumbling over Morris as she went,
and telling him he had come too soon--it was not fittin' for him to be
there under foot until he was wanted.

Morris probably thought he was wanted, by one member of the family at
least, and without replying directly to Aunt Betsy, he knocked with a
vast amount of assurance at a side door, which opened directly, and
Katy's glowing face looked out, and Katy's voice was heard, not telling
him he was not wanted, but saying, joyfully:

"Oh, Morris, it's you. I'm so glad you've come, for I wanted--"

But what she wanted was drowned by a succession of certain mysterious
sounds, such as are only produced by a collision of lips, and which made
Aunt Betsy mutter to herself:

"It's all right, I know, but so much kissin' as I've seen the last
fortni't is enough to turn a body's stomach. I guess old bachelders and
widders is commonly wus than fresh hands at it."

And having thus expressed her thoughts, Aunt Betsy seized the handle of
the ice-cream freezer and turned it vigorously, thinking, perhaps, of
Joel Upham, and what might have been but for a freak of hers. Meanwhile
Morris and Katy sat alone in the little sewing-room, where latterly they
had passed so many quiet hours together, and where lay the bridal dress,
with its chaste and simple decorations. Katy had clung tenaciously to
her mourning robes, ask