So I spoze more'n like as not they be.
And I also learnt, through a letter received that very day, that Mr.
Bolster has led Miss Plank to the altar, or she has led him--it don't make much difference.

Anyway, she has walked offen the Plank of widowhood, and settled down onto a Bolster for life.
[Illustration: Mr.Bolster led Miss Plank to the altar.] I wuz glad on't.

She wanted a companion, and he loves to converse, Heaven knows; and he is sure of one thing--he's almost certain, or as certain as we can be of anything in this life, that he will have the best pancakes that hands can make or spoons stir up.
I learnt also from her letter--Miss Bolster's, knee Plankses--that Nony Piddock wuz a-goin into the ministery.

What a case for funerals he will be, and shockin' casualities! But he won't be good for much on a weddin' occasion.
And speakin' of weddin's brings me back to my subject agin.
No, it wuzn't any of these things that cast that mournful shadder on my eyebrows, anon, and even oftener, when I wuz out by myself-- And I spoze that I might as well tell what it wuz that I regretted and missed-- It wuz Christopher Columbus! the Brave Admiral! good, noble creeter! I felt, in view of all he had done for America and the world, it wuz too bad that he had to die without havin' the privilege of seein' Jonesville, and bein' with us that day, and seein' what we see, and hearin' what we heard, and eatin' what we eat-- It wuz his doin's, the hull on't wuz Christopher Columbuses doin's.

For if he hadn't discovered America, why, he wouldn't had no World's Fair for him.