have supper on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.

   (On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)

   Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back. But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set there for some time alone.

   Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven—they wuz all ready, I had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the oven—and then I set down and read my letters.

   Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I sithed deep. I love company dearly, but—oh my soul, is there not a difference, a difference in visitors?

   Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter, thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.

   And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose."

   I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter brung me startlin' intelligence.

   It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.

   And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."

   But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I see it wuz writ on duty.

   She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't. She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down, and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong on't.

   She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored 

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