"I'm sure I don't know. I've asked myself the question a thousand times."

"Don't you want to marry him?"

"I don't know. I guess I do."

"My dear," said Mrs. Snow, soberly, "This is a very solemn thing."

"I don't see it in that light," said Miss b.u.t.terworth, indulging in a new fit of laughter. "I wish I could, but it's the funniest thing. I wake up laughing over it, and I go to sleep laughing over it, and I say to myself, 'what are you laughing at, you ridiculous creature?'"

"Well, I believe you are a ridiculous creature," said Mrs. Snow.

"I know I am, and if anybody had told me a year ago that I should ever marry Jim Fenton, I--"

"Jim Fenton!" exclaimed the whole Snow family.

"Well, what is there so strange about my marrying Jim Fenton?" and the little tailoress straightened in her chair, her eyes flashing, and the color mounting to her face.

"Oh, nothing; but you know--it's such a surprise--he's so--he's so--well he's a--not cultivated--never has seen much society, you know; and lives almost out of the world, as it were."

"Oh, no! He isn't cultivated! He ought to have been brought up in Sevenoaks and polished! He ought to have been subjected to the civilizing and refining influences of Bob Belcher!"

"Now, you mustn't be offended, Keziah. We are all your friends, and anxious for your welfare."

"But you think Jim Fenton is a brute."

"I have said nothing of the kind."

"But you think so."

"I think you ought to know him better than I do."

"Well, I do, and he is just the loveliest, manliest, n.o.blest, splendidest old fellow that ever lived. I don't care if he does live out of the world. I'd go with him, and live with him, if he used the North Pole for a back log. Fah! I hate a slick man. Jim has spoiled me for anything but a true man in the rough. There's more pluck in his old shoes than you can find in all the men of Sevenoaks put together. And he's as tender--Oh, Mrs. Snow! Oh, girls! He's as tender as a baby--just as tender as a baby! He has said to me the most wonderful things! I wish I could remember them. I never can, and I couldn't say them as he does if I could. Since I became acquainted with him, it seems as if the world had been made all over new. I'd become kind o' tired of human nature, you know. It seemed sometimes as if it was just as well to be a cow as a woman; but I've become so much to him, and he has become so much to me, that all the men and women around me have grown beautiful. And he loves me in a way that is so strong--and so protecting--and so sweet and careful--that--now don't you laugh, or you'll make me angry--I'd feel safer in his arms than I would in a church."

"Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed Mrs. Snow.

"Isn't it remarkable!" said Miss Snow.

"Quite delightful!" exclaimed the second sister, whose enthusiasm could not be crammed into Miss Snow's expression.

"Really charming," added Number Three.

"You are quite sure you don't know what you want to marry him for?" said Mrs. Snow, with a roguish twinkle in her eye. "You are quite sure you don't love him?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Miss b.u.t.terworth. "It's something. I wish you could hear him talk. His grammar would kill you. It would just kill you.

You'd never breathe after it. Such awful nominative cases as that man has! And you can't beat him out of them. And such a p.r.o.nunciation! His words are just as rough as he is, and just like him. They seem to have a great deal more meaning in them than they do when they have good clothes on. You don't know how I enjoy hearing him talk."

"I'm inclined to think you love him," said Mrs. Snow, smiling.

"I don't know. Isn't it the most ridiculous thing, now?"

"No; it isn't ridiculous at all," said Mrs. Snow, soberly.

Miss b.u.t.terworth's moon was sailing high that evening. There were but few clouds in her heaven, but occasionally a tender vapor pa.s.sed across the silver disk, and one pa.s.sed at this moment. Her eyes were loaded with tears as she looked up in Mrs. Snow's face, and said:

"I was very lonely, you know. Life had become very tame, and I saw nothing before me different from my daily experience, which had grown to be wearisome. Jim came and opened a new life to me, offered me companionship, new circ.u.mstances, new surroundings. It was like being born again. And, do you know, I don't think it is natural for a woman to carry her own life. I got very tired of mine, and when this strong man came, and was willing to take it up, and bear it for me as the greatest pleasure I could bestow upon him, what could I do--now, what could I do?

I don't think I'm proud of him, but I belong to him, and I'm glad; and that's all there is about it;" and Miss b.u.t.terworth sprang to her feet as if she were about to leave the house.

"You are not going," said Mrs. Snow, catching her by both shoulders, "so sit down."

"I've told you the whole: there's nothing more. I suppose it will be a great wonder to the Sevenoaks people, and that they'll think I'm throwing myself away, but I do hope they will let me alone."

"When are you to be married?"

"In the spring."

"Where?"

"Oh! anywhere. No matter where. I haven't thought about that part of it."

"Then you'll be married right here, in this house. You shall have a nice little wedding."

"Oh! and orange-blossoms!" exclaimed Miss Snow, clapping her hands.

"And a veil!" added Number Two.

"And a--" Number Three was not so familiar with such occasions as to be able to supply another article, so she clapped her hands.

They were all in a delicious flutter. It would be so nice to have a wedding in the house! It was a good sign. Did the young ladies think that it might break a sort of electric spell that hung over the parsonage, and result in a shower which would float them all off?

Perhaps so. They were, at least, very happy about it.

Then they all sat down again, to talk over the matter of clothes. Miss b.u.t.terworth did not wish to make herself ridiculous.

"I've said a thousand times, if I ever said it once," she remarked, "that there's no fool like an old fool. Now, I don't want to hear any nonsense about orange-blossoms, or about a veil. If there's anything that I do despise above board, it's a bridal veil on an old maid. And I'm not going to have a lot of things made up that I can't use. I'm just going to have a snug, serviceable set of clothes, and in three days I'm going to look as if I'd been married ten years."

"It seems to me," said Miss Snow, "that you ought to do something. I'm sure, if I were in your place, that I should want to do something."

The other girls t.i.ttered.

"Not that I ever expect to be in your place, or anything like it," she went on, "but it does seem to me as if something extra ought to be done--white kid gloves or something."

"And white satin gaiters," suggested the youngest sister.

"I guess you'd think Jim Fenton was extra enough if you knew him," said Miss b.u.t.terworth, laughing. "There's plenty that's extra, goodness knows! without buying anything."

"Well," persisted the youngest Miss Snow, "I'd have open-worked stockings, and have my hair frizzed, any way."

"Oh, I speak to do your hair," put in the second daughter.