"How do you like it?" I demanded, referring to the monstrous din.

"It's great," she said, plainly referring to something else. "One of
them real upty-up weddings in high life, with orchestras and bowers of
orchids and the bride a vision of loveliness--"

"I mean the noise."

"What noise?" She put the paper aside and stared at me, listening
intently. I saw that she was honestly puzzled, even as the chorus
swelled to unbelievable volume. I merely waved a hand. The coyote was
then doing a most difficult tremolo high above the clamour.

"Oh, that!" said my enlightened hostess. "That's nothing; just a little
bunch of calves being weaned. We never notice that--and say, they got
the groom's mother in here, too. Yes, sir, Ellabelle in all her tiaras
and sunbursts and dog collars and diamond chest protectors--Mrs. Angus
McDonald, mother of groom, in a stunning creation! I bet they didn't
need any flashlight when they took her, not with them stones all over
her person. They could have took her in a coal cellar."

"How do you expect to sleep with all that going on?" I insisted.

"All what? Oh, them calves. That's nothing! Angus says to her when they
first got money: 'Whatever you economize in, let it not be in diamonds!'
He says nothing looks so poverty-stricken as a person that can only
afford a few. Better wear none at all than just a mere handful, he
says. What do you think of that talk from a man named Angus McDonald?
You'd think a Scotchman and his money was soon parted, but I heard him