surviving her beloved spouse Thomas forty years, has gone to join him where he dwells, let us hope in comfort. Thomas must have been about making up his mind that she had gone somewhere else. A poor young wife of nineteen is dead, "passionately regretted." Another announcement says three little children, aged two, four, and six, respectively, are dead of scarlet fever, all within one short week. An elderly gentleman of ninety is "deeply lamented," and has R.I.P. placed at the end, though surely if any one deserves to rest in peace he does.
Turning to the births (for I am reading in a purposeless, desultory fashion), I see that Lady Fatacres has a daughter, and the Rev. James Poorman a son. I observe that most of the happy fathers are either clergymen or officers, and I wonder for the fiftieth time why Providence sends such an abundance of children to the men who can barely fill their own mouths, and withholds them altogether from those who could bring up a dozen handsomely and never feel the shoe pinch.
Now for the marriages. How jolly that first one looks—two sisters married on the same day to two brothers. Douglas marries Ruby, and Donald marries Violet. What a big wedding it must have made, and what fun the four young people will have when they meet (as I dare say they will) on their wedding tour! Rather awkward, though, if the sisters ever quarrel; there will be a scrimmage, husbands and wives, all of a lump. This one looks more sober: plain John James marries Eliza Ann, her name is Prodgers, his Trimmins. I can fancy that they make a very decorous couple, she in a grey satin gown, he in a brown coat and a blue stock, and that the festivities are more of a funereal than a jovial character. (I wonder what my wedding dress will be? It is odd, but I never thought of it till to-day. All things must be pretty much alike, though, on that day, when every woman who has a heart looks her worst.) Here is a male Brown married to a
