But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even
if I have half promised Dr. John a dozen times over to do it, while I
only really left him to _suppose_ I would. It is bad enough to know
that your belt has to be reduced to twenty-three inches without putting
down how much it measures now in figures to insult yourself with. No, I
intend to have this for my happy spring.

Yes, I suppose it would have been lots better for my happiness if I had
kept quiet about it all, but at the time I thought I had better consult
him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being
a widow, you are accustomed to consulting a man, whether you want to or
not, and you can't get over the habit immediately. Poor Mr. Carter, my
husband, hasn't been dead much over six years, and I must be missing him
most awfully, though just lately I can't remember not to forget about
him a great deal of the time.

Still, that letter was enough to upset anybody, and no wonder I ran
right across my garden, through Billy's hedge-hole and over into Dr.
John's surgery to tell him about it; but I ought not to have been
agitated enough to let him take the letter right out of my hand and read
it.

"So after ten years Alfred Bennett is coming back to offer his
bachelor's-buttons to you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the voice he always
uses when he makes fun of Billy and me, and which never fails to make us
both mad.

I didn't look at him directly, but I felt his hand shake with the letter
in it.