ina silks and Canton crape,--a beautiful material,--and French and
English goods that escaped the enemy; so if you had the money you could
find enough for an extensive wedding outfit. At home we had also begun
to make some very nice woolen goods.

May came out full of bloom and beauty. Such a shower of blossoms from
cherry, peach, pear, and apple would be difficult now to imagine. For
almost every house had a yard or a garden. Colonnade Row was among the
earliest places to be built up compactly of brick and was considered
very handsome for the time.

But people strolled around then to see the beautiful unfolding of
nature. There was the old Hancock House on Beacon Street. The old hero
had gone his way, and his wife was now Madam Scott, and lived in the
same house, and though the garden and nursery had been shorn of much of
their glory, there were numerous foreign trees that were curiously
beautiful, and people used to make at least one pilgrimage to see these
immense mulberry trees in bloom.

The old Bowdoin garden was another remarkable place, and the air around
was sweet for weeks with the bloom of fruit trees and later on the
grapes that were raised in great profusion. You sometimes saw elegant
old Madam Bowdoin walking up and down the garden paths and the
grandchildren skipping rope or playing tag.

But Summer Street, with its crown of beauty, held its head as high as
any of its neighbors.

"I don't see why May should be considered unlucky for weddings," Isabel
protested. "I should like to be married in a bower of apple blossoms."

"But isn't a bower of roses as beautiful?"

"And the snow of the cherries and pears! Think of it--fragrant snow!"

But Isabel gave parties to her friends, and they took tea out under the
great apple tree and were snowed on with every soft wave of wind.

It was not necessary then to go into seclusion. The bride-elect took
pleasure in showing her gowns and her finery to her dearest friends. She
was to be married in grandmother's brocade. Her own mother had it lent
to her for the occasion. It was very handsome and could almost "stand
alone." There were great flowers that looked as if they were embroidered
on it, and now it had assumed an ivory tint. Two breadths had been taken
out of the skirt, people were so slim at present. But the court train
was left. The bertha, as we should call it now, was as a cobweb, and the
lace from the puff sleeve falling over the arm of the same elegant