At New Year’s a box arrived for Fannie.  It contained a gold pin in the shape of a horseshoe, in addition to a large, heart-shaped candy box filled with such chocolates that each was as a foretaste of celestial bliss to Fannie, who now thought she might fairly assume airs of importance.

Half a dozen letters went rapidly back and forth, and then the proposal bounded along as unexpectedly as every other detail of the courtship.  There was very little sentiment of expression about it, but he was in earnest and gave references as to his respectability, etc., much as if he were applying for a business position, and ended by asking her at which end of his route she preferred to live, New York, or Portland, Maine, and if in New York, would she prefer Brooklyn or Harlem?

Fannie quickly decided upon Harlem, for, as Marie said, “There one only need give the street name and number, while very few people yet realize that Brooklyn really is in New York.”

This important matter settled, the Penney girls arose in their might upon the wings of ambition.  There should be a church wedding.

Now the Penneys were, as all their forbears had been, Congregationalists; but that church had no middle aisle, besides, as there was no giving away of the bride in the service, there was little chance for pomp and ceremony.  It was discovered that the groom’s parents had been Episcopalians, and though he was liberal to the degree of indifference upon such matters, it was decided that to have the wedding in St. Peter’s would be a delicate compliment to him.

All the spring the village dressmaker has been at work upon the gowns of bride and of bridesmaids, of whom there are to be six, and now the cards are out and the groom’s name also, the L at the last moment having been found to stand for Liberty.  If they had consulted the groom, he would have decried all fuss, for Fannie’s chief attraction was that he thought her an unspoiled, simple-minded country girl.

The hour was originally set for the morning, but as Fannie saw in her fashion paper that freckled people often developed a peculiarly charming complexion when seen by lamplight, the time was changed to eight at night, in spite of the complications it caused.

A week before the invitations were issued Fannie came to see me and after some preamble said:  “Mrs. Evan, I want my wedding to be good form, and I’d like to do the swell thing all through.  Now the Parlour Journal says that the front pews that are divided off by a white ribbon should be for the bride’s folks on one side of the aisle and the groom’s on the other.  Mr. Middleton hasn’t any people near by enough to come, so I thought I’d have the Bluff folks sit on that side.”

“The Bluff people?” I queried, in amazement.  “You surely aren’t going to invite them?  Do you know any of them?”