the cars or wrecked or somethin'. Not that I'm so powerful afeared of anything like that, fur I do hope I'm prepared to go whenever the Master calls; but it ain't fur me to begin a-runnin' around at my age, after livin' all these years at home. No, indeed. Why, I could n't sleep in no other bed but my own now. I don't take to no sich new things."
And go Mrs. Hodges would not. So Eliphalet was forced to write and refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive was very brief. It said only, "Alice has promised to marry me. Won't you and Aunt Hester come and see me joined to the dearest girl in the world?" There was a postscript to it: "I did not love Elizabeth. I know it now."
"Hester, I'm agoin'." said Eliphalet.
"Go on, 'Liphalet, go on. I want you to go, but I'm set in my ways now. I do hope that girl kin do something besides work in an office. She ought to be a good housekeeper, an' a good cook, so's not to kill that pore child with dyspepsy. I do hope she won't put saleratus in her biscuits."
