Weddings were always home affairs among the strictly country folk, by common consent and custom, no matter to what denomination the people belonged.  Those with contracted houses went quietly to parsonage or rectory with a few near friends; others were married at the bride’s home, the ceremony followed by more or less merrymaking.  A church wedding was regarded as so great a strain upon the families that the young people had no right to ask it, even if they so desired.

That has passed, at least for the time being, and all eyes are fixed upon the movements of the Bluff people, and many feet are stumbling along in their supposed footsteps.  It would be really funny if it were not half pitiful.  The dear simple folk are so terribly in earnest that they do not see that they are losing their own individuality and gaining nothing to replace it.

The Whirlpoolers, though only here for the between seasons, are constantly entertaining among themselves, and hardly a day passes but a coaching party drives up from town with week-end golfers for whom a dance is given, or stops en route to the Berkshires or some farther point.  A few outsiders are sometimes asked to the more general of these festivities, friends of city friends who have places hereabout, the clergy and their wives, and, alas, the Doctor’s daughter; but society-colonies do not intend associating with the-natives except purely for their own convenience, and when they do, pay no heed to the code they enforce among themselves.

It is not harsh judgment in me, I feel sure, when I say that Evan would not be asked so often to the Bluffs to dinner if he were not a well-known landscape architect whose advice has a commercial value.  They always manage to obtain enough of it in the guise of after-dinner conversation and the discussion of garden plans to make him more than earn his fare.  For the Whirlpoolers are very thrifty, the richer the more so, especially those of Dutch trading blood, and they are not above stopping father on the road, engaging in easy converse, praising the boys, and then asking his opinion about a supposititious case, rather than send for him in the regular way and pay his modest fee.

In fact, Mrs. Ponsonby asked me to a luncheon last autumn, and it quickly transpired afterward, that she had an open trap for sale suitable for one horse; she knew that Evan was looking for such a vehicle for me, and suggested that I might like this one.

A bulky and curious correspondence grew up around the transaction, and the letters are now lying in my desk marked “Mrs. Ponsonby, and the road cart.”  Finally I took the vehicle out on a trial trip.  I noticed that it had a peculiar gait, and stopping at the blacksmith’s, called him to examine the running gear.  He gave one look and burst into a guffaw:  “Land alive, Mrs. Evan, that’s Missis Ponsonby’s cart, that stood so long in the city stable, with the wheels on, that they’re off the circle and no good.  I told her she’d have to get new ones; but her coachman allowed she’d sell it to some Jay.  You ain’t bought it, hev yer?”