“‘Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in society,’ Cub declared.
“What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine.
“‘The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked. It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to hang on for his own sake.
“‘But there ain’t much to hang on to,’ said the Deacon.
“‘Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it.
“‘I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they’re behind in their interest, but I’m not going to push them,’ she said to me.
“So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its means and had entered the ‘charge it’ van, and was trying to serve two masters.
“Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire.
“Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks of the parish. They were a good-looking couple.