She's still an old maid,
Though she would not have been
Could she have mar-ri-ed any kind of man.
But she could not.
So to the Humane
She came, and caus-ed a good deal of pain.

3

But now she's here
To be married, and go
Away with her red-headed, red-bearded beau.
Have mercy, Lord,
And help him to bear
What we've been doing this many a year!

And such singing! We'd been practising in the back part of the yard, and
humming in bed, so as to get the words into the tune; but we hadn't let
out until that night. That night we let go.

There's nothing like singing from your heart, and, though I was the
minister and stood on a box which was shaky, I sang, too. I led.

The bride didn't think it was modest to hold up her head, and she was
the only silent one. But the bridegroom and bridesmaids sang, and it
sounded like the revivals at the Methodist church. It was grand.

And that bride! She was Miss Bray. A graven image of her couldn't have
been more like her.

She was stuffed in the right places, and her hair was frizzed just like
Miss Bray's. Frizzed in front, and slick and tight in the back; and her
face was a purple pink, and powdered all over, with a piece of dough
just above her mouth on the left side to correspond with Miss Bray's
mole.

And she held herself so like her, shoulders back, and making that little
nervous sniffle with her nose, like Miss Bray makes when she's excited,
that once I had to wink at her to stop.

The groom didn't look like Dr. Rudd. But she wore men's clothes, and
that's the only way you'd know some men were men, and almost anything
will do for a groom. Nobody noticed him.

We were getting on just grand, and I was marrying away, telling them
what they must do and what they mustn't. Particularly that they mustn't
get mad and leave each other, for Yorkburg was very old-fashioned and
didn't like changes, and would rather stick to its mistakes than go back
on its word. And then I turned to the bride.

"Miss Bray," I said, "have you told this man you are marrying that you
are two-faced and underhand, and can't be trusted to tell the truth?
Have you told him that nobody loves you, and that for years you have
tried to pass for a lamb, when you are an old sheep? And does he know
that though you're a good manager on little and are not lazy, that your
temper's been ruined by economizing, and that at times, if you were
dead, there'd be no plac