" I could not consider the mere possibility of
anything like this, and we gave Pomona all the ordinary
opportunities for entertaining her visitors. To tell the truth, I
think we gave her more than the ordinary opportunities. I know
that Euphemia would wait on herself to almost any extent, rather
than call upon Pomona, when the latter was entertaining an evening
visitor in the kitchen or on the back porch.
"Suppose my mother," she once remarked, in answer to a mild
remonstrance from me in regard to a circumstance of this nature,--
"suppose my mother had rushed into our presence when we were
plighting our vows, and had told me to go down into the cellar and
crack ice!"
It was of no use to talk to Euphemia on such subjects; she always
had an answer ready.
"You don't want Pomona to go off and be married, do you?" I asked,
one day as she was putting up some new muslin curtains in the
kitchen. "You seem to be helping her to do this all you can, and
yet I don't know where on earth you will get another girl who will
suit you so well."
"I don't know, either," replied Euphemia, with a tack in her mouth,
and I'm sure I don't want her to go. But neither do I want winter
to come, or to have to wear spectacles; but I suppose both of these
things will happen, whether I like it or not."
For some time after this Pomona had very little company, and we
began to think that there was no danger of any present matrimonial
engagement on her part,--a thought which was very gratifying to us,
although we did not wish in any way to interfere with her
prospects,--when, one afternoon, she quietly went up into the
village and was married.
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