"John!" gasped the old man, getting to his feet and reaching his hand across the table, "you've got plenty of sense if you do wear a mustache! God bless you, my boy; there ain't no better woman here, nor in New York, nor anywhere, than Huldah. God bless you both! I was afraid you'd take a different road, though."
"Hurrah for our Huldah and our John!" said George Harlow, the college boy, and his brothers joined him. Even the little Holmes children hurrahed.
Here the judge stopped.
"Well," said Irene, "I don't think it was very nice in him to marry the 'help.' Do you, father?"
"Indeed I do," said the judge, with emphasis.
"Did she ever come to understand Emerson?" asked Anna, who detested the Concord philosopher because she could not understand him.
"Indeed I don't know," said the judge; "you can ask Huldah herself."
"Who? what? You don't mean that mother is Huldah?"
It was a cry in concert.