blessed man, he took it like a saint. He just gave her up as serene and
calm as a psalm-book, and called Jim in and told him to take her.

"Jim was fairly overcrowed,--it really made him feel small,--and he
says he'll agree that there is more in the Doctor's religion than most
men's: which shows how important it is for professing Christians to
bear testimony in their works,--as I was telling Cerinthy Ann Twitchel:
and she said there wa'n't anything made her want to be a Christian so
much, if that was what religion would do for people.

"Well, you see, when this came out, it wanted just three days of the
wedding, which was to be Thursday, and that wedding-dress I told you
about, that had lilies-of-the-valley on a white ground, was pretty much
made, except puffing the gauze round the neck, which I do with white
satin piping-cord, and it looks beautiful too; and so Mrs. Scudder and
I, we were thinking 'twould do just as well, when in come Jim Marvyn,
bringing the sweetest thing you ever saw, that he had got in China, and
I think I never did see anything lovelier. It was a white silk, as
thick as a board, and so stiff that it would stand alone, and overshot
with little fine dots of silver, so that it shone, when you moved it,
just like frostwork; and when I saw it, I just clapped my hands, and
jumped up from the floor, and says I, 'If I have to sit up all night,
that dress shall be made, and made well, too.' For, you know, I thought
I could get Miss Olladine Hocum to run the breadths and do such parts,
so that I could devote myself to the fine work. And that French woman I
told you about, she said she'd help, and she's a master hand for
touching things up. There seems to be work provided for all kinds of
people, and French people seem to have a gift in all sorts of dressy
things, and 'tisn't a bad gift either.