I should like very much to have our
best friends with us on the anniversary, if I could feel sure that they
wouldn't regard it as a tax. We all give willingly when people are
married, but it does seem rather a grind, as the children used to say,
to have to go out and buy something else a quarter of a century later,
when you know that the senile old couple will be able to use whatever
you get only a few years at the farthest, and that then it will be
snapped up or melted up by their children or grandchildren. Mind you,
dear, I should often be glad to give silver myself, if I could afford
it; but I am looking at the matter from the point of view of the world
at large. Do you know," she added, "that isn't at all a bad idea of
yours. We could put on the cards 'No silver,' just as they put 'No
flowers.' It was quite a brilliant suggestion, Fred."
"There are always fools, though, who will disregard such a notice just
from sheer contrariness."
"Oh, if we once gave them warning, and they chose to send
notwithstanding, it would be their own fault," exclaimed Josephine,
buoyantly. "I should hope there would be a few such people, for I
should be very glad to have more silver. It's not that I object to the
silver, but because I wish to give a loophole of escape to the people
who wouldn't send it unless they felt obliged to.
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