"What can she say but Come!"
"Hurrah!"
The stranger caught her out of her chair as if she had been a child, and kissed her.
"Don't—oh, don't!" she cried out. "I am Sam's Maria!"
"Well—I am Maria's Sam!"
Off went the dark wig and the black whiskers—there smiled the dear face she had not forgotten! I leave you to imagine the tableau; even the cat got up to look, and Bose sat on his stump of a tail, and wondered if he was on his heels or his head.
The widow gave one little scream, and then she—
But, stop! Quiet people like you and me, dear reader, who have got over all these follies, and can do nothing but turn up our noses at them, have no business here. I will only add that two hearts were very happy, that Bose concluded after a while that all was right, and so lay down to sleep again, and that one week afterward, on Christmas Eve, there was a wedding at the house that made the neighbors stare. The widow had married her First Love!