point of excitement.

"Tie, nonsense; marrying is roping in with ball and chain, to my mind.
And a week between a man and a woman in their cradles gets to be fifteen
years between them and their graves. Well, I must go home now to see
that Sally cooks up a few of Mr. Johnson's crotchets for supper." And
she began to hurry away.

Marriage is the only worm in the bud of Mrs. Johnson's life, and her
laugh has a snap to it even if it is not very sugary sweet.

When I told Jane about the dinner-party and asked her to get her mother
to come and help her, and her nephew to wait at table, she smiled such
a wide smile that I was afraid of being swallowed. She understood that
Aunt Adeline wouldn't be interested in it until I had time to tell her
all about it. Anyway, Aunt will be going over to Springfield on a
pilgrimage to see Mr. Henderson's sister next week. She doesn't know it
yet; but I do.

After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning my
dinner-party, and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lots
of company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or more
relatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like,
but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up.

I'll never forget my first real party. I was bridesmaid for Caroline
Evans, when she married a Birmingham magnate, from which Hillsboro has
never yet recovered. It was the week before the wedding. I was sixteen,
felt dreadfully unclothed without a tucker in my dress, and saw Alfred
for the first time in evening clothes--his first. I can hardly stand