d I'd like to have riz right up in that Conference and told
him so."

"Oh, no," sez Josiah, lookin' some meachin', "no, you wouldn't."

"Yes, I would," sez I. "And I'd 've enjoyed it _richly_" sez I, es I
turned and put my sprig round the edge of the platter.

[Illustration: SAMANTHA EXPRESSES HER VIEWS.]

Casper wuz demute for as much as half a minute, and Josiah Allen looked
machin' for about the same length of time.

But, good land! how soon they got over it. They wuz as chipper as ever,
a-runnin' down the idee of women settin', before they got half through
dinner.

After hard and arjuous work we got the scrapin' done, and the scrubbin'
done, and then we proceeded to make a move towards puttin' on the paper.

But the very day before we wuz to put on our first breadth, Sister
Bobbet, our dependence and best paperer, fell down on a apple parin'
and hurt her ankle jint, so's she couldn't stand on a barell for more'n
several days.

And we felt dretful cast down about it, for we all felt as if the work
must stop till Sister Bobbet could be present and attend to it.

But, as it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz
concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account
of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my
own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come
entirely onexpected to me, and contained the startlin' intelligence that
my own cousin, on my mother's own side, had come home to Loontown to
his sister's, and wuz very sick with nervous prostration, neuralgia,
rheumatism, etc., and expected paralasys every minute, and heart
failure, and such.

[Illustration: "SISTER BOBBET, OUR DEPENDENCE, FELL DOWN ON A APPLE
PARIN'".]

And his sister, Miss Timson, who wrote the letter, beset me to come over
and see him. She said, Jane Ann did (Miss Timson'ses name is Jane Ann),
and sez she in Post scriptum remark to me, sez she--

"Samantha, I know well your knowledge of sickness and your powers of
takin' care of the sick. Do come and help me take care of Ralph, for it
seems as if I can't let him go. Poor boy, he has worked so hard, and now
I wuz in hopes that he wuz goin' to take some comfort in life, unbeknown
to him. Do come and help him for my sake, and for Rosy's sake." Rosy wuz
Ralph's only child, a pretty girl, but one ruther wild, and needin' jest
now a father's strong hand.

Rosy's mother died when she wuz a babe, and Ra