For the ladies of the respective families first to offer
and receive congratulations would be very much more committing on both
sides; at the same time, to avoid the appearance of stiffness, some one
ought to speak, and speak promptly. The news had not come to us
directly from our neighbors, but authoritatively from a friend of
theirs, who was also a friend of ours, and we could not very well hold
back. So, in the cool of the early evening, when I had quite finished
rasping my lawn with the new mower, I left it at the end of the swath,
which had brought me near the fence, and said across it,
"Good-evening!"
My neighbor turned from making his man pour a pail of water on the
earth round a freshly planted tree, and said, "Oh, good-evening! How
d'ye do? Glad to see you!" and offered his hand over the low coping so
cordially that I felt warranted in holding it a moment.
"I hope it's in order for me to say how very much my wife and I are
interested in the news we've heard about one of your daughters? May I
offer our best wishes for her happiness?"
"Oh, thank you," my neighbor said. "You're very good indeed. Yes, it's
rather exciting--for us. I guess that's all for to-night, Al," he said,
in dismissal of his man, before turning to lay his arms comfortably on
the fence top. Then he laughed, before he added, to me, "And rather
surprising, too.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25