Pomona takes a Bridal Trip

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Her husband was a tall young fellow, a son of a farmer in the county, who had occasionally been to see her, but whom she must have frequently met on her "afternoons out."

When Pomona came home and told us this news we were certainly well surprised.

"What on earth are we to do for a girl?" cried Euphemia.

"You're to have me till you can get another one," said Pomona quietly. "I hope you don't think I'd go 'way, and leave you without anybody."

"But a wife ought to go to her husband," said Euphemia, "especially so recent a bride. Why didn't you let me know all about it? I would have helped to fit you out. We would have given you the nicest kind of a little wedding."

"I know that," said Pomona; "you're jus' good enough. But I didn't want to put you to all that trouble--right in preserving-time too. An' he wanted it quiet, for he's awful backward about shows. An' as I'm to go to live with his folks,--at least in a little house on the farm,--I might as well stay here as anywhere, even if I didn't want to, for I can't go there till after frost."

"Why not?" I asked.

"The chills and fever," said she. "They have it awful down in that valley. Why, he had a chill while we was bein' married, right at the bridal altar."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Euphemia. "How dreadful!"

"Yes, indeed," said Pomona. "He must 'a' forgot it was his chill-day, and he didn't take his quinine, and so it come on him jus' as he was apromisin' to love an' pertect. But he stuck it out, at the minister's house, and walked home by his-self to finish his chill."

"And you didn't go with him?" cried Euphemia, indignantly.

"He said, no. It was better thus. He felt it weren't the right thing to mingle the agur with his marriage vows. He promised to take sixteen grains to-morrow, and so I came away. He'll be all right in a month or so, an' then we'll go an' keep house. You see it aint likely I could help him any by goin' there an' gettin' it myself."

"Pomona," said Euphemia, "this is dreadful. You ought to go and take a bridal tour and get him rid of those fearful chills."

"I never thought of that," said Pomona, her face lighting up wonderfully.

Now that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy idea, she never dropped it until she had made all the necessary plans, and had put them into execution. In the course of a week she had engaged another servant, and had started Pomona and her husband off on a bridal-tour, stipulating nothing but that they should take plenty of quinine in their trunk.

It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia and I were sitting on our front steps,--I had come home early, and we had been potting some of the tenderest plants,--when Pomona walked in at the gate. She looked well, and had on a very bright new dress. Euphemia noticed this the moment she came in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great interest in this girl, who had grown up in our family and under our care.