August seems to be considered an unusual month for a wedding; but it suits the circumstances, and as Sylvia has decided to be married quite privately here at Oaklands, for her own sake, as well as for Mrs. Bradford’s convenience, she wisely wishes to have it over before the possible return of the Whirlpoolers.

Horace had hoped that his mother would join them in Northbridge, but she said “No,” very firmly, adding, with a quaint, twinkling smile, “Horace, nobody ever loved each other closer than your father and I, but there were times in the beginning when ever so well meaning a third finger in our pie would have spoiled the baking.  Best leave old mother on the farm until by and by, when she can’t tell a fresh egg from a bad one any longer.”

So Horace comes down twice a week to visit Sylvia, and Miss Lavinia often drives to Pine Ridge with her and leaves her for a day, so that Mrs. Bradford may share the pleasant woman’s talk of linen for table and bed, and other details of a bridal outfit.

We all missed Miss Lavinia when she left, that is, all but the boys, and they hailed the change with joy, as giving them another house to roam in and out of.  How much of the joy of childhood that we so envy comes from their freedom from prejudice, the ability they have for adapting themselves.

Martin was so distrait for a time that father absolutely ventured to tease him a little, whereupon he turned stoutly about and declared:  “I have never denied the inspiration and value of congenial female society, and the mere fact that circumstances have shut me from it so much of late years makes me all the more appreciative of present privileges.  Oh, Dick, old friend, isn’t it some credit to a man who has lived backward almost from his birth, if, after he’s sixty, he realizes it and tries to catch up with the present?  It seems to me as if the best things had always been just within my grasp, only to slip away again, through unforeseen circumstances, and my ill luck reminds me of a story and picture in a comic paper that the boys were chuckling over last night.  It was of a well-intentioned beetle who fattened a nice green caterpillar for its family’s thanksgiving dinner, and the thing went and spun itself into a cocoon the night before!”

Martin Cortright at times verges on the pathetic, but always cures himself by his appreciation of his own limitations before he reaches the bore stage.  He too is taking a short vacation from work, or rather I should say that he has developed industry in a new direction and become absorbed in entomology, to the extent of waging war on the tent caterpillars that are disfiguring both the orchards and the wild cherry trees of the highways with their untidy filmy nests, leaving the foliage prematurely brown and sere, from their ravages.  Yesterday, in driving home from Pine Ridge with Sylvia, we noticed that even the wood edges had the appearance of being scorched by fire, and many of the old orchards where we go in May for apple blossoms are wrecks meshed in the treacherous slimy webs.