In Delta Wedding (1946), Welty also depicts a family of rural "aristocrats" on the decline, gentry who gradually lose out to democratic ideals and to what is perceived as the contamination of "commoners." The "delta wedding" is between a daughter of that family and an able, attractive young man who has no family name or history to recommend him. Another link, this one to The Optimist's Daughter, has been noted above. In style and manner of telling, The Ponder Heart perhaps most closely resembles one of Welty's frequently anthologized, extremely popular stories, "Why I Live at the P.O."