Monday morning Quincy made another trip to Boston.  He had obtained the measurements for a large sign, upon which, on a blue ground, the words “Strout & Maxwell” were to appear in large gold letters.  He paid another visit to the carriage factory, and ordered two leather covered wagon tops, to be used in stormy weather, and picked out two sets of harness resplendent with brass buckles and bosses and having “S. & M.” in brass letters on the blinders.

He reached Aunt Ella’s in time for lunch.  He told her of the approaching wedding of Ezekiel and Huldy; then, leaning over, he whispered something in her ear, which made her face beam with delight.

“What a joke it will be,” cried she, “and how the country folks will enjoy it.  Can’t I come down to the wedding, Quincy, and bring my landau, my double span of cream-colored horses, and my driver and footman in the Chessman livery?  I’ll take you and your lady love to the church.”

“Why, certainly,” said Quincy.  “I’ll ask Miss Mason to send you an invitation.”

“Let me do something to help,” begged the impetuous but good-hearted Aunt Ella.  “Bring the girls up some morning early.  We will go shopping, then we’ll lunch here.  We will have to go without our wine and cigars that day, you know, and then we’ll go to the modiste’s and the milliner’s in the afternoon.  We’ll make a day of it, young man.”

Quincy leaned back in his easy-chair and blew a ring of blue smoke from one of Uncle Robert’s cigars.

“Excuse me, Aunt Ella,” said he, “but do you ever intend to get married again?”

“Quincy Adams Sawyer!” cried Aunt Ella, with an astonished look on her face, “are you joking?”

“Certainly not,” replied Quincy.  “My question was intended to be a serious and respectful inquiry.  You are only forty, fine looking, well educated, well connected and wealthy.  Why should you not?”

“I will answer you seriously then, Quincy.  I could not marry again.  Ten years’ life with Robert Chessman was a greater pleasure than a lifetime with an ordinary man.  I was twenty-five when I married him; we lived together ten years; he has been dead for five.  How often I have wished that Robert had lived to enjoy his fortune with me.

“But he was satisfied,” she continued. “’Better be a success at the end,’ he used to say, ’than be a success in middle life and fall from your greatness.  Look at Wolsey, look at Richelieu, look at Napoleon Bonaparte.’  He would often remark:  ’Earth has no sadder picture than a broken idol.’  He used to consider Abraham Lincoln the most successful man that ever lived, for he died before making a mistake, and when he was strongest in the hearts of the people.

“Your question reminds me,” continued Aunt Ella, “of something I had in mind to say to you at some future day, but I may as well say it now.  How much money have you, Quincy, and what is your income?”

“Father gave me fifty thousand dollars outright when I was twenty-one; it pays on an average six per cent.  Besides this he allows me two thousand a year for supposed professional services rendered in his law office.”