Two dressmakers were sewing for Mary.

A colored cook, with a flaming red turban, came up from Worcester to superintend the culinary department, and a week before the wedding Aunt Martha also arrived, bringing with her a quantity of cut glass of all sizes and dimensions, the uses of which could not even be guessed, though the widow declared upon her honor, a virtue by which she always swore, that two of them were called "cellar dishes," adding that the "Lord only knew what that was!" With all her quizzing, prying, and peeking, Mrs.Perkins was unable to learn any thing definite with regard to the wedding dress, and as a last resort, she appealed to Jenny, "who of course ought to know, seein' she was goin' to stand up with 'em." "O, yes, I know," said Jenny, mischievously, and pulling from her pocket a bit of brown and white plaid silk,--Mary's travelling dress,--she passed it to the widow, who straightway wondered at Mary's taste in selecting "that gingham-looking thing!" Occasionally the widow felt some doubt as she heard rumors of pink brocades, India muslins, heavy silks, and embroidered merino morning-gowns; "but law," thought she "them are for the city.

Any thing 'll do for the country, though I should s'pose she'd want to look decent before all the Boston top-knots that are comin'." Three days before the wedding, the widow's heart was made glad with a card of invitation, though she wondered why Mrs.Mason should say she would be "at home." "Of course she'd be to hum,--where else should she be!" It was amusing to see the airs which Mrs.Perkins took upon herself, when conversing with some of her neighbors, who were not fortunate enough to be invited.

"They couldn't ask every body, and 'twas natural for them to select from the best families." Her pride, however, received a fall when she learned that Sally Furbush had not only been invited, and presented with a black silk dress for the occasion, but that George Moreland, who arrived the day preceding the wedding, had gone for her himself, treating her with all the deference that he would the most distinguished lady.

And truly for once Sally acquitted herself with a great deal of credit, and remembering Miss Grundy's parting advice, to "keep her tongue between her teeth," she so far restrained her loquacity, that a stranger would never have thought of her being crazy.
The bridal day was bright, beautiful, and balmy, as the first days of September often are, and when the sun went down, the full silvery moon came softly up, as if to shower her blessings upon the nuptials about to be celebrated.