"Or perhaps wish to."

III

The end of August--the night before my marriage.

Several earthquakes have lately been felt in this part of the globe.
Coming events cast their shocks before.

The news of it certainly came like the shock of an earthquake to many
people of the town, who know perfectly well that no woman will allow
the fruit and flowers to be carried off a place as a man will. The
sagacious old soul who visits me yearly for young pie-plant actually
hurried out and begged for a basketful of the roots at once, thus
taking time--and the rhubarb--by the forelock. And the old epicurean
harpy whose passion is asparagus, having accosted me gruffly on the
street with an inquiry as to the truth of my engagement and been
quietly assured, how true it was, informed me to my face that any man
situated as happily as I am was an infernal fool to entangle himself
with a wife, and bade me a curt and everlasting good-morning on the
spot. Yet every day the theme of this old troubadour's talk around the
hotels is female entanglements--mendacious, unwifely, and for him
unavailing.

Through divers channels some of my fellow-creatures--specimens of the
most dreadful prose--have let me know that upon marrying I shall
forfeit their usurious regard. As to them, I shall relapse into the
privacy of an orchard that has been plucked of its fruit. But my
wonderment has grown on the other hand at the number of those to whom,
as the significant unit of a family instead of a bachelor zero, I have
now acquired a sterling mercantile valuation. Upon the whole, I may
fairly compute that my relation to the human race has been totally
changed by the little I may cease to give away and by the less that I
shall need to buy.

And Mrs. Walters! Although I prefer to think of Mrs. Walters as a
singer, owing to her unaccountable powers of reminiscential
vocalization, I have upon occasion classified her among the waders; and
certainly, upon the day when my engagement to Georgiana transpired, she
waded not only all around the town but all over it, sustained by a
buoyancy of spirit that enabled her to keep her head above water in
depths where her feet no longer touched the bottom.

It was the crowning triumph of this vacant soul's life to boast that
she had made this match; and for the sake of giving her so much
happiness, I think I should have been willing to marry Georgiana
whether I loved her or not.

So we are all happy: Sylvia,