ended in this, and bade us a mournful good-evening and left.

Louisa and I had an impression that she held us in some way
responsible, and we could not see why, though I did reflect guiltily
how I had asked the lovers into my house that October night. Louisa
and I agreed that, take it altogether, we had never seen so much
mutual love and mutual scorn in two families.



VI

THE CENTENNIAL


The older one grows, the less one wonders at the sudden, inconsequent
turns which an apparently reasonable person will make in a line of
conduct. Still I must say that I was not prepared for what Mrs. H.
Boardman Jameson did in about a week after she had declared that her
daughter should never marry Harry Liscom: capitulated entirely, and
gave her consent.

It was Grandma Cobb who brought us the news, coming in one morning
before we had our breakfast dishes washed.

"My daughter told Harriet last night that she had written to her
father and he had no objections, and that she would withdraw hers
on further consideration," said Grandma Cobb, with a curious,
unconscious imitation of Mrs. Jameson's calm state of manner. Then
she at once relapsed into her own. "My daughter says that she is