“It is hereby certified that in conformity with the laws of the United States—” and on through to the end.
“It don’t say a word about not marryin’ again,” Lizzie declared.
“Well, all the same, it’s the law. Josh knows.”
Lizzie blew out the lamp, and they went back to the door-step. Mrs. Butterfield’s hard feelings were all gone; her heart warmed to Nathaniel; warmed even to the mangy dog that limped out from the barn and curled up on Lizzie’s skirt. But when she went away, “comfortable in her mind,” as she told her husband, Lizzie Graham still sat in the dark under her elm, trying to get her wits together.
“I know Josh is right,” she told herself; “he’s a careful talker. I can’t do it!” But she winced, and drew in her breath; poor Nathaniel!
She had seen him that afternoon, and had told him, this time with no embarrassment (for he was as simple as a child about it), that she had arranged with Mr. Niles to marry them. “An’ you fetch your bag along, Nathaniel, and we’ll put the machine together, evenin’s,” she said.
“Yes, kind woman,” he answered, joyously. “Oh, what a weight you have taken from my soul!”
His half-blind eyes were luminous with belief. Lizzie had smiled, and shaken her head slightly, looking at the battered rubbish in the bag—the little, tarnished mirrors, one of them cracked; the two small lenses, scratched and dim; the handful of rusty cogs and wheels. With what passion he had dreamed that he would see that which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive! He began to talk, eagerly, of his invention; but reasonably, it seemed to Lizzie. Indeed, except for the idea itself, there was nothing that betrayed the unbalanced mind. His gratitude, too, was sane enough; he had been planning how he could be useful to her, how he was to do this or that sort of work for her—at least until his eyes gave out, he said, cheerfully. “But by that time, kind woman, my invention will be perfected, and you shall have no need to consider ways and means.”
Lizzie, smiling, had left him to his joy, and gone back to sit under her elm in the twilight, and think soberly of the economies which a husband—such a husband—would necessitate.
And then Mrs. Butterfield had come panting up to the gate; and now—