"Do
you know, Fred, that I think on the whole we shall have a happier day
if we pass it quietly together, and simply have the children to dine.
So many of the people of whom we were fond at the time we were married
have passed away, that I am sure we should be appalled by the thinness
of the ranks when we began to reckon who are left. Besides, I don't
think that a notice not to bring silver would really protect the poor
wretches who didn't wish to bring any. It would seem too evidently to
mean that they needn't bring any unless they chose to, but that it
would be acceptable all the same, which would worry dreadfully those
who like to do whatever others do. Don't you think so? You see
everybody understands that nobody really objects to receiving silver.
Besides, it would involve no end of fuss, and we should be so occupied
with the arrangements that we should forget to pay any attention to
each other, so that it would be a dreary day to look back upon."
"Indeed, Josephine, I agree with you entirely," said I. "Unless such
affairs go off just right they are stiff and ghastly. People who are
bent on paying us a compliment will have an opportunity to come to our
funerals before very long."
"Not together, though. Oh, Fred, wouldn't it be the crowning thing of
all, after so much happiness, if we _could_ die at the same time and
never know what it was to miss each other!"
Although we are jointly and severally aware that the years have been
slipping away, and that our turns to bid farewell to this dear earth
may come any day now despite the fact that we feel young as ever, we
choose still to regard death as a shy visitor which is likely to prefer
others to us.
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